/r^y  J 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

^ate  GrordonMoore 


HOW  TO  PREPARE 

ESSAYS,  LECTURES,  ARTICLES, 

BOOKS,  SPEECHES 

AND  LETTERS 

WITH  HINTS   ON    WRITING  FOR    THE  PRESS 


EUSTACE    H.    MILES,    M.A. 

FORMERLY   SCHOLAR   OF    KING's   COLLEGE,    AND   HONOURS    COACH    IN    ESSAY-WRITING 

AT   CAMUKIDGE    UNIVERSITY 


THIRD  i:>iPRi:ssiox 


RIVINGTONS 

34,    KING    STREET,     CO  VENT    GARDEN 

LONDON 

1905 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DEDICATED 

TO 

PROFESSOR  CLIFFORD   ALLBUTT 


85275'1 


CONTENTS 

PAGH 

Preface     .....  xiii 

Part  I. 
Introduction,  and  Summary. 

^lAPTERS 

I.  Advantages  of  being  Able  to  Write  and  Speak  Well  .  3 

II.  Common  Types  of  Subjects  for  Compositions      .         .  9 

III.  The  Choice  of  a  Subject             .                .            .        .  13 

IV.  Differences  between  various  Classes  of  Compositions  .  16 
V.  Different  Ways  of  Learning       .                 .             .         .  23 

\T.     Summary  of  the  Book,  with  a  Rhyme       .  .         .  27 

VII.     Some  General  Principles  of  Composition  .         .  37 

VIII.     Difficulties  and  Faults  in  Composition,  with  a  Sample 

Schoolboy-Essay  (Analysed)  .  .         .  44 

IX.     Aims  and  Motives  of  Writers  and  Speakers         .         .  48 

Part  II. 

Ideas :  How  to  Collect,  Select,  and  Arrange  Headings 
and  Sub-Headings. 

X.     Bad   Schemes  for   Compositions,  and   Faults  of  the 

Ideas  and  Headings  .  .  .         .     54 

60 


XI.     What  the  Ideas  and  Headings  ought  to  be 
XII.     How  to  Collect  Ideas  in  the  Form  of  Headings  and 
Sub-Headings  .  .  .  . 

XIII.  Some  Headings  which  are  often  Omitted 

XIV.  Advantages  of  General  Lists  of  Headings    . 
X\^     Headings  for   an   Essay,  etc.,  on   a  Period:    with 

Rhyme       .  .  ... 

XVI.     Various  Uses  for  the  Period-Headings     . 


63 
71 

73 

79 
84 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTERS 

XVII. 


How  to  Learn  Lists  of  Heading's 


XVIII.     Headings  for  Special  Subjects  (e.g.  Colonisation,    87 


XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 

XXVII. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX. 

XXX. 
XXXI. 

XXXII. 
XXXIII. 
XXXIV. 

XXXV. 


or  War) :  with  a  Rhyme 
Headings  for  an  Essay,  etc.,  on  a  Person     . 
Sub-Headings      .  .  .  . 

Sub-Headings  for  an  Essay,  etc.,  on  a  Person 
Sub-Headings  for  the  Period-Headings 
Headings  for  an  Essay,  etc.,  on  an  Author,  and 

for  Literary  Criticism 
Topics  for  Composition,  with   Headings  for  an 

Essay  on  Progress 
Authorities,  and  their  Faults  and  Failings :  with 

a  Rhyme  .  .  .  . 

Other  Evidences 
Fallacies :  with  a  Rhyme   . 
Definitions  .  .  .  . 

Parallels,  Comparisons,  and  Contrasts 

(See  Chapters  LI.-LI  1 1.) 
Quotations  .  .  .  . 

How  to  Select  and  Reject  Headings 

(Unity,  etc.)     .  .  .  . 


How  to  Proportion  and  Underline  the  Headings    170 
How  to  Arrange  the  Headings  .  .        .172 

The  Card-System  .  ,  .         .     186 

Advantages  of  the  Card-System        .  .        .     192 


91 

93 

95 

96 

107 

129 
133 

139 
145 
150 

159 

162 
163 

166 


Part  III. 

How  to  Express  Ideas  :  Style. 

XXXVI.     Expression  of  Ideas,  and  Style:  General  Notes  202 

XXXVII.     Difficulties  and  Faults  in  Expressing  Ideas        .  205 
XXXVIII.     How  to  find  Characteristics  of  Expression  and 

Style:  Matt.  vii.  15-27  as  an  Illustration        .  211 
XXXIX.     How  and  how  far  a  Style  should  be  Imitated : 

Originality     .                 .                 ...  219 

XL.     Force  and  Vigour             .                ...  222 


CONTENTS 

vit 

CHAPTERS 

PAGE 

XLI. 

Clearness,  and  Simplicity                 .            .         .     227 

XLII. 

Brevity  and  Economy 

239 

XLI  1 1. 

Appropriateness,  or  Adaptation,  anc 

\  Unit) 

243 

XLIV. 

Variety 

251 

XLV. 

Interest,  and  Suggestiveness 

255 

XLVI. 

Beginnings 

258 

XLVII. 

Endings 

261 

CLVIII. 

Connexion  and  Cohesion  . 

263 

XLIX. 

Emphasis  and  Impressiveness 

268 

L. 

Absence  of  Emphasis 

278 

LI. 

Parallels 

279 

LII. 

Comparisons,  Analogies,  etc. 

281 

LIII. 

Contrasts  and  Exclusions 

291 

LIV. 

Questions 

296 

LV. 

Other  Rhetorical  Devices 

299 

LVI. 

Rhythm 

303 

LVII. 

Chapters 

308 

LVI  1 1. 

Paragraphs 

310 

LIX. 

Sentences 

315 

LX. 

Grammar,  or  Syntax 

320 

LXI. 

Words,  or  Vocabulary 

324 

LXII. 

Writing,  Spelling,  and  Punctuation 

326 

LXI  1 1. 

Revisions 

330 

Part  IV. 

How  to  Teach,  Learn,  and  Practise  Composition : 
with  General  Hints. 

LXIV^  How  to  Correct  Compositions 

LXV.  How  to  Teach  Composition 

LXVI.  Aims  of  Teaching 

LXVII.  How  to  Practise 

LXVI  1 1.  How  to  Read     . 

LXIX.  How  to  Learn  from  Lectures,  Speeches,  etc 

LXX.  General  Hints  and  Helps 


335 
337 
345 
347 
352 
35S 
360 


viii  CONTENTS 

Part  V. 

Hints  on  Writing  for  the  Press,  Speaking, 
and  Letter-Writing. 

CHAPTERS  PAGE 

LXXI.     Hints  on  Writing  for  the  Press,  Correcting  Proofs, 

and  making  Indices      .  ...  367 

LXXI  I.     Speaking  .  .  ...  384 

LXXI  1 1.     Letter-Writing  .  .  ...  390 

Part  VL 

Advantages  of  this  System,  with  Answers  to  Objections. 

LXXIV.     Advantages  of  this  System  .  .         .     397 

LXXV.     Objections  to  this  System,  with  Answers     .         .     404 

Appendix. 
Some  useful  Reference-Books  .  ...    409 

Index     .  •  ...    411 


PREFACE 

]Many  who  themselves  can  easily  write  excellent 
Articles  or  make  excellent  Speeches,  by  the  light  of 
nature,  will  utterly  fail  to  teach  beginners  the  art  of 
Writing  or  Speaking.  Indeed,  some  of  the  very  greatest 
ICssayists  have  made  quite  ridiculous  attempts  to  explain 
how  '  Style'  can  be  acquired,  or  even  what  it  really  is. 

An  illustration  from  elsewhere  may  show  the  true 
reason  for  this  failure.  A  j^layer  of  Billiards  sees 
Roberts  making  one  of  his  large  breaks,  or  a  player 
of  Lawn  Tennis  sees  Doherty  make  a  beautiful  stroke 
from  the  back  of  the  court ;  or  else  perhaps  it  is 
Latham  wlio  is  pla\-ing  Tennis  or  Rackets,  or  it  may 
be  some  celebrated  Cricketer  or  Rower  or  Fencer  or 
Boxer.  But,  whoever  it  may  be,  if  he  does  his  work 
zvtll,  then  that  work  will  look  very  easy.  The  admirer 
now  goes  home  and  tries  to  imitate  w  hat  he  has  seen 
the  skilled  player  do  ;  in  the  next  game  which  he  plays 
he  tries  to  rei^roduce  the  stroke,  but  fails  lamentably. 
Why  is  this  }  Probably  it  is  chiefly  because  he  does 
some  part  or  parts  of  the  action  wrongly. 

A  good   stroke  at   Billiards,  for  example,   is  a   very 

coDiplcx  thing.      It   cannot  be    [perfect   unless   each   part 

of  the  strtjke   be   perfect   in   itself;   and   unless,  at   the 

same  time,  each  part   be   perfectl)'  combined    with   the 

A  -•  i.\ 


X  PREFACE 

other  parts.  There  must  be  not  only  perfect  parts  but 
also  perfect  co-operation  or  co-ordination  of  the  parts. 

The  one  chance  of  improvement  for  an  average 
individual  is  to  find  out  what  these  parts  are,  and 
then  to  master  them  one  by  one.  He  must  analyse 
tlie  whole  stroke,  and  must  not  attempt  to  do  it  as 
if  it  were  a  single  unit.  It  is  true  that  the  born 
player,  by  the  light  of  genius,  does  the  whole  stroke  as 
a  whole  stroke,  and  perhaps  is  not  aware  that  it  can  be 
divided  into  parts :  he  may  even  deny  it.  None  the 
less  it  has  often  been  proved  that  it  can  be  divided  into 
parts,  and  that  to  master  each  part  separately  is  a  much 
easier  process  than  to  master  the  whole  at  once.  It  is  not 
going  too  far  to  say  that  for  average  people  to  master 
the  whole  stroke  at  once  is  an  absolute  impossibility. 

Unfortunately,  however,  a  great  deal  of  our  teaching 
is  in  the  hands  of  those  who  do  things  instinctively  and 
by  the  light  of  nature.  They  themselves  do  the  whole 
thing  as  a  whole,  all  together,  and  in  a  single  action,  and 
they  may  do  the  thing  very  well  indeed.  But,  because 
they  do  it  in  this  way  themselves,  it  does  not  in  the  least 
follow  that  this  is  the  best  way  for  others  to  learn  to  do  it. 
They  themselves  are  geniuses,  and  therefore  exceptions  ; 
most  of  those  who  are  to  be  taught  are  not  geniuses  but 
average  people,  or  people  below  the  average.  They  have 
to  move  step  by  step  and  with  effort  over  the  ground 
which  the  genius  covers  with  a  flying  leap. 

And  this  applies  also  to  Essay- Writing  and  Speaking. 
They  are  very  complicated  processes,  and  must  be  prac- 
tised and  concjuered  Z^?;-^  by  part,  before  the  various  parts 


PREFACE  xi 

can  be  successfully  combined  together,  and  before  Essay- 
Writing  and  Speaking  can  be  done  as  single  processes. 

Let  me  take  another  comparison.  Supposing  you 
had  to  build  a  house,  and  only  had  a  pile  of  bricks, 
or  perhaps  only  rough-hewn  stones  of  various  sizes. 
How  would  you  set  about  building  your  house?  We 
will  suppose  that  you  can  already  put  bricks  in  a  line, 
and  even  put  mortar  between  them,  or  arrange  rough- 
hewn  stones  so  that  they  could  make  a  single  wall. 
Now,  in  building  a  house,  will  you  begin  by  making 
a  room?  No,  perhaps  you  will  first  get  a  full  list  of 
rooms,  etc.,  and  then  chouse  just  those  which  you  want. 
Otherwise,  you  will  probably  forget  some  important 
room,  or  you  might  even  forget  the  staircase.  Secondly 
you  will  decide  on  the  size  and  positions  of  the  various 
rooms  :  you  will  assign  to  the  chief  rooms  the  largest 
size  and  the  best  positions,  and  you  will  decide  the  shape 
of  the  rooms  also.  Now  you  might  begin  to  build,  for 
now  you  have  your  plan  ma[)pcd  out.  Now,  also,  it 
would  be  time  to  attend  to  the  mortar.  Last  of  all,  there 
might  come  the  furnishing.  But  it  is  obvious  that  you 
could  not  build  a  house  well  or  easily,  unless  you  had 
had  practice  in  each  one  of  these  departments,  in  deciding 
on  the  rooms,  in  arranging  them,  in  planning  them,  in 
building  them,  and  in  furnishing  them.  Each  part 
would  have  to  be  studied  by  itself,  and  it  is  well  known 
that  there  are  specialists  who  give  up  their  lives  to  one 
or  two  of  these  several  departments,  or  e\cn  to  a  sub- 
division of  one  of  them. 

An  Essay  or  a  Speech  is  not  less  complicated  Uian 


xii  PREFACE 

this.  I  will  assume  that  you  have  the  Words  already, 
and  the  power  to  fit  them  into  Sentences.  You  have 
the  bricks  and  a  certain  kind  of  mortar.  It  now 
remains  for  you  to  do  the  rest  of  the  work  part  by 
part.  E.g.  you  will  have  to  Collect  and  make  a  list  of 
)-our  Ideas  (Headings  and  Sub-Headings)  for  the  Essay 
or  Speech.  You  will  have  to  Select,  deciding  which 
are  to  be  used  and  which  are  not.  You  will  have  to 
Arrmige  the  selected  Headings.  And  then  you  will 
have  to  Express  them — in  itself  not  a  simple  task. 

Let  me  take  just  one  of  the  branches  of  Expression 
alone,  and  you  can  then  realise  how  complicated  is  the 
process  of  Essay-writing  or  Speaking.  You  have  an 
Idea  which  you  feel  ought  to  be  EmpJiasiscd,  because 
it  is  so  important.  Now  how  can  you  emphasise  it  ? 
Of  course  you  can  underline  it,  or  n'ou  can  repeat  it, 
perhaps  changing  the  words.  Well  and  good  :  these 
are  quite  legitimate  means,  though  there  are  some  who 
do  not  allow  underlining.  But  what  other  means  can 
y(ju  use?  When  I  wished  just  now  to  emphasise  the 
difficulty  and  complexity  of  most  of  the  things  that 
geniuses  do  so  easily,  I  em[jhasised  it  by  a  Com- 
parison or  Illustration,  namel\'  that  of  building  a  house. 
It  is  the  same  with  Essay-Writing  and  Speaking.  This 
is  one  of  the  most  useful  means  of  Emphasising,  and 
is  really  (see  p.  284)  a  form  of  Repetition.  By  a  Com- 
parison we  repeat  the  Idea  under  a  slight  disguise. 
And  why  did  I  particularly  choose  the  building  of  a 
house,  or  the  playing  of  a  game?  I  did  so  because 
I  thought  that  it  would  be  easier  to  understand,  and  I 


PREFACE  xiii 

thought  also  that  it  would  be  more  interesting.  Another 
means  of  ICmphasis  (see  p.  291)  would  be  Contrast. 
Black  stands  out  far  more  emphatically  if  there  is  a 
background  of  white.  Freedom  is  far  more  emphati- 
cally described  if  there  is  the  contrast  of  slavery ;  and 
so  on.  And  there  are  many  other  means  of  Emphasis- 
ing, which  will  be  shown  in  their  proper  place  (p.  28 1). 
The  above  will  be  sufficient  for  the  present  purpose. 
The  lesson  surely  is  that  to  emphasise,  in  this  way,  an 
Idea  which  is  felt  to  be  important,  is  not  an  automatic 
process  to  most  people  ;  it  is  not  done  instinctively,  and 
by  the  light  of  nature.  They  may  feel  that  the  Idea 
ought  to  be  Emphasised,  but  they  do  not  know  the 
means.  And  they  obviously  ought  to  practise  this  art 
of  Emphasising  by  itself,  as  a  separate  Exercise, 
centring  and  focussing  their  attention  on  this  alone. 

My  method  will  therefore  be  to  take  each  part  of  the 
process  of  Essay-Writing  or  Speaking,  since  it  is  a  com- 
plicated process,  and  to  see  how  each  of  the  parts  can 
be  mastered  by  itself.  I  shall  go  upon  the  principle 
upon  which  the  Romans  went  in  their  conquests,  viz. 
'  DIVIDE  ET  IMPERA',  '  Isolate  what  you  have  to  master, 
and  master  it  part  by  part'.  And,  besides  this,  make 
certain  of  what  you  have  already  mastered,  before  you 
proceed  to  fresh  attacks. 

P^or  I  do  not  thinly  that  the  reason  why  so  man\-  people 
fail  to  write  good  Essays  or  to  make  good  Speeches 
is  so  much  that  they  are  barren  of  Ideas,  or  that  their 
Grammar  is  bad,  or  even  that  their  Expression  is  very 
bad  ;  I  think  their  chief  fault  is  that  tJuy  i>y  to  do  all  at 


XIV  PREFACE 

once  that  of  which  they  cannot  yet  do  any  single  part  well, 
even  by  itself.  I  often  noticed  that  most  Candidates  in 
Examinations  used  to  begin  to  write  their  Essays  at 
once.  They  never  reahsed  that  their  minds  were  there- 
by being  distracted  and  divided  among  many  different 
processes,  each  of  which  is  particularly  hard  even  when 
taken  alone.  For  all  at  once  their  minds  are  being 
called  upon  to  Collect  Ideas,  to  Select  and  decide  which 
are  important,  etc.,  to  Arrange  the  Selected  Ideas,  and 
to  Express  them.  To  try  all  this  as  a  single  action  is 
most  extraordinarily  unscientific,  even  if  a  few  brilliant 
geniuses  here  and  there  have  succeeded  in  the  attempt. 

As  I  said  above,  few  things  are  more  lamentable  than 
the  attempts  of  many  good  Writers  to  say  what  good 
Writing  is.  It  helps  the  learner  very  little  to  be  told 
that  good  Writing  can  be  known  by  its  indefinable 
charm  !  The  real  truth  is  that  good  Writers  seldom 
know  how  it  is  that  they  write  well :  they  have  not 
analysed  the  Art  of  Writing.  With  myself  it  has  been 
very  different.  I  have  had  to  teach  myself  most  of  what 
I  know.  At  School,  there  were  few  who  wrote  worse 
Essays  than  I  did.  Since  then  I  have  learnt  a  great 
deal  from  various  books,  and  have  learnt  a  great  deal 
more  by  experiments,  and  by  attempts  at  teaching 
others. 

The  process  by  which  I  arrived  at  the  conclusions 
which  are  given  in  this  Book  might  be  interesting  to 
the  reader. 

I  first  of  all  began  with  Games,  and  at  Games  I  failed 
to  improve,  in  spite  of  training  and   practice.     Even- 


PREFACE  XV 

tually  I  discovered  the  reason  why,  and  I  found  that  it 
would  be  almost  impossible  to  improve  without  study- 
ing a  Game  part  by  part.  I  found  that  what  I  had 
considered  to  be  a  simple  action  was  really  an  action 
consisting  of  perhaps  ten  or  fifteen  parts ;  *  all  those 
parts  I  now  began  to  master  separately,  and  I  improved 
far  more  than  I  had  thought  possible.  It  then  occurred 
to  me  that  this  same  Method  might  be  applied  to 
the  learning  and  teaching  of  other  things  besides 
Games :  I  tried  to  apply  it  to  various  subjects,  e.g. 
History,  and  Philology.  The  different  Principles,  by 
which  each  part  might  be  mastered,  I  have  attempted  to 
work  out  by  making  experiments,  by  reading  Books, 
by  listening  to  advice,  and  by  trying  to  teach  and 
lecture,  and  b}'  writing  down  my  ideas  on  paper  and 
taking  notes  of  the  different  results  from  time  to  time. 

Essay-writing  is  one  of  the  last  things  which  I  have 
tried  to  teach  at  Cambridge,  and  it  only  occurred  to  me 
to  do  so  when  I  saw  v.hat  a  great  need  there  was  for 
some  such  teaching.  For  here  every  Examination  now 
has  an  Essay  in  it.  At  Oxford  the  Essay  has  been 
insisted  on  for  a  longer  period. 

I  found  that  the  books  on  the  subject  were  mostl}'  by 
geniuses  and  not  by  patient  plodders  like  myself;  not 
only  were  they  far  too  detailed  to  begin  with,  but  they 
did  not  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter.  I  found  also 
that  those  who  were  supposed  to  teach  the  subject  would 
occasionally  ask,  '  How  can  one  set  about  teaching 
Essays?'     Indeed   I  once  heard  a  well-known  Essay- 

*  See  "Lessons  in  Lawn  Tennis"  (Upcott  Gill). 


xvi  r RE  FACE 

writer  say  that  Essay-Writing  could  not  possibly  be 
taught;  for  he  said  he  himself  had  tried  to  teach  it. 
And  of  course  it  is  probably  true  that  perfect  Essay- 
Writing  cannot  be  entirely  taught.  But  it  occurred  to 
me  that  in  a  subject  like  this  there  must  be  some  way 
of  improving  people,  not  indeed  up  to  the  point  of  per- 
fection, but  yet  considerably. 

I  therefore  tried  to  divide  the  subject  into  its  various 
parts,  asking  myself  what  an  Essay-writer  ought  to  do 
first  of  all,  what  should  be  the  first  part  that  he  should 
attack  ;  and  it  occurred  to  me  that  the  Collection  of 
Ideas  or  Headings  should  come  first,  somewhat  as  in 
the  house  the  list  of  rooms  should  come  first.  Then 
these  Ideas  should  be  examined,  so  that  the  important 
Ideas  might  be  selected,  and  the  rest  of  the  Scheme 
should  be  made,  including  the  Sub-Headings  to  these 
Main  Headings.  The  Ideas  should  be  Arranged,  and  a 
general  Outline  of  the  Essay  should  be  made,  some- 
what as  one  would  make  an  outline  of  a  Drawing  or  of 
a  Map,  before  one  proceeded  to  fill  in  the  details. 

But  I  found  that  to  Collect  the  Ideas  was  by  no 
means  a  simple  task.  The  English  education  does  not 
encourage  learners  to  think.  They  are  generally  told  to 
reproduce  the  ideas  of  others,  and,  unless  the  question 
comes  straight  out  of  the  Text-book,  they  often  find 
themselves  quite  unable  to  answer  it.  On  examining 
the  Essays  of  various  pupils  I  found  that  they  had  been 
Collecting  together  in  their  Essays  only  half  the  facts 
or  illustrations  which  they  really  knew  all  the  time.  It 
became  then  a  problem,  '  How  could  the  Headings  for 


PREFACE  xvii 

an  Essay  be  Collected  ?'  And  I  began  to  make  various 
Lists  which  might  apply  to  ina?iy  Jdiuis  or  types  of  Essays. 
These  Lists  will  be  found  e.g.  on  pages  83  and  92.  I 
have  called  them  'General  Lists'.  If  llic  reader,  for 
instance,  had  to  give  a  survey  of  England  as  it  is  to- 
day, he  would  find  it  very  hard  to  think  of  Headings  ; 
but  if  he  had  a  General  List  of  Headings,  if  he  had 
before  him  all  the  chief  topics,  then  he  would  find  it 
very  fairly  eas\'  to  Select  what  he  wanted.  So  I  made 
a  certain  number  of  general  Lists  which  would  apply 
to  most  Essays. 

Then  came  the  difficulty  of  learning  these  Lists,  and 
to  meet  this  I  have  suggested  that,  when  once  the  Lists 
have  been  mastered  and  understood,  they  might  be 
learnt  by  means  of  l\.h}-mes. 

The  process  of  Arranging  these  Headings  I  also 
found  very  difficult,  and  my  chief  help  was  to  get  hold 
of  two  or  three  different  Principles,  which  will  be 
explained  on  page  172  foil.,  and  to  use  the  Card- 
System  (p.   186). 

But  '  Style '  was  the  hardest  part  of  all.  I  knew  that 
certain  Writers  were  good  Writers,  and  had  a  good 
Style ;  but  I  found  it  extraordinarily  hard  to  analyse 
that  Style.  Why  should  such-and-such  a  piece  be  good 
Engli.sh  and  good  St)'le,  and  another  piece  quite  the 
reverse?  The  greatest  help  here  (see  p.  212)  I  got  from 
the  New  Testament. 

I  thus  arrived  at  the  results  which  I  give  in  this 
Book.  And  it  seemed  to  me  a  great  advantage,  in  a 
complex  subject  like  this,  to  divide  it  into  its  component 


xviii  PREFACE 

parts,  and  then  to  see  how  each  part  can  be  practised 
by  itself;  and  how  each  mistake  can  be  analysed  by  the 
learner,  for  himself,  and  can  then  be  corrected.  This 
appears  to  me  to  be  the  only  scientific  way  of  teaching 
the  a\-erage  learner.  It  is  of  little  Jise  to  shoiv  hitn  the 
perfect  model  without  analysing  it,  and  making  him  see 
exactly  where  it  differs  from  the  imperfect  attempt. 
It  follows  therefore  that  the  Book  is  not  intended 
for  the  genius,  who  does  the  whole  thing  correctly 
as  a  whole,  and  not  only  correctly  but  also  without 
conscious  effort.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  not  for  him  unless 
lie  wishes  to  teach  others.  If  he  does  wish  to  teach 
others,  then  even  he  might  find  this  Book  of  some 
help.  For  instance,  if  a  learner  says  to  him  '  How 
shall  I  emphasise  this  idea?',  the  genius-writer  will 
probably  be  entirely  at  a  loss :  he  will  be  unable  to 
understand  the  state  of  mind  of  anyone  who  feels  a 
difficulty  here.  He  himself  does  the  thing  unconsciously 
and  automatically  :  he  '  knoweth  not  how '. 

The  Book  is  meant  for  those  who  themselves  intend 
to  write  Books,  either  in  Prose  or  in  Poetry,  or  Articles, 
or  Essays,  or  who  wish  to  prepare  Speeches  of  various 
kinds  (whether  they  be  after-dinner  Speeches,  or 
Speeches  in  the  House,  or  at  Meetings,  or  at  Debates), 
or  Lectures,  or  Sermons,  Even  Conversation  and 
ordinary  Letters  will  be  helped  by  the  method  which 
I  outline.  For  Examiners,  for  Teachers,  for  Learners, 
for  Critics,  I  believe  the  suggestions  may  be  of  value. 
There  are  a  great  many,  for  instance,  w^ho  are  under 
the  delusion  that  it  is  'economy'  to  write  everything 


PREFACE  xix 

huddled  together  on  a  small  piece  of  paper;  a  good 
deal  of  failure  in  Writing  is  due  to  this  false  economy. 
Paper  is  becoming  cheaper  and  cheaper,  and,  the  more 
liberally  it  is  used,  the  better  the  results  are  likely 
to  be. 

Above  all,  the  Book  is  intended  for  beginners,  for 
average  people,  and  for  those  wlio  are  below  the 
average.  As  I  have  meant  it  to  suit  all  readers, 
I  have  approached  the  same  idea  from  many  points 
of  view.  For  instance,  when  I  have  treated  of  Com- 
parisons, I  have  not  only  treated  them  under  various 
Headings,  e.g.  under  '  the  means  of  Interesting  the 
readers',  'the  means  of  making  a  thing  Clear',  or 
'  the  means  of  introducing  Variety ',  or  '  the  means  of 
Emphasising',  etc.,  under  all  of  which  Headings  Com- 
parisons should  come  ;  but  I  have  also  collected,  in  a 
special  Chapter  on  Comparisons,  these  various  functions 
which  are  theirs.  Besides  this,  I  have  suggested  special 
Exercises  on  Comparisons,  and  have  called  attention  to 
some  of  the  commonest  Faults  with  respect  to  them. 

I  believe  that,  if  the  Principles  of  Learning  this 
subject  are  once  mastered,  they  will  be  found  useful 
in  learning  almost  any  other  subject.  I  have  certainly 
found  them  of  great  value  in  helping  the  Memory, 
and  in  helping  the  teaching  of  History,  Philology, 
Prose-Compositions,  Verse-Compositions,  and  numerous 
other  subjects.  If  this  is  so  in  reality,  it  would  be  a 
great  help  for  teaching  and  learning  generally,  and  it 
would  show  that  many  (if  not  all)  subjects  can  to 
some  extent  be  learnt  and  taught  according  to  a  single 


XX  PREFACE 

method  ;  in  which  method  not  the  least  important  factor 
would  be  the  practising  of  the  various  processes  singly, 
so  that  the  whole  attention  may  be  concentrated  and 
focussed  on  each  one  process  independently. 

1  should  like  to  express  here  my  thanks  for  the  great 
care  which  has  been  taken  in  the  printing  of  this  work. 
Of  course  some  errors  must  have  escaped  notice,  and 
I  shall  be  glad  to  have  them  pointed  out.  In  fact,  any 
suggestions  will  be  very  welcome. 

King's  College,  Cambridge    1899. 


Part  I. 


PART    I.     INTRODUCTION   AND   SUMMARY. 


[When  the  Book  is  being  read  for  the  first  time, 
Chapter  IV.  might  be  omitted. J 

CHAPTERS  PAGE 

I.   Advantages    of    being    A}3LE    to    Write 

AND  Speak  Well               .               ...  3 

II.    Common  Types  of  Subjects  for  Compositions  9 

III.  The  Choice  of  a  Subject  .               .           .        .  13 

IV.  Differences    between    Various    Classes 

OF  Compositions                .               .           .        .  16 

V.    Different  Ways  of  Learning          .           .        .  23 

VI.    Summary  of  the  Book,  wnu  a  Rhyme     .        .  27 

VII.    General  Principles  of  Composition          .        .  ^7 
VIII.    Difficulties  and  Faults  in  Composition, 

with  a  Sample  Schoolboy-Essay  (Analysed)  44 

IX.   Aims  and  Motives  of  Writers  and  Speakers  .  48 


CHAPTIiR    I.     ADVANTAGES   OF   BEING  ABLE 
TO  WRITE   AND   SPEAK   WELL. 


For  the  advantages  of  preparing  Compositions  and 
Speeches  by  the  system  suggested  in  this  ]5ook,  I  must 
refer  to  Chapter  LXXIV.  (p.  397).  Here  I  shall  speak 
chiefly  of  the  general  advantages  of  being  able  to 
Write  well  and  to  Speak  well. 

One  of  the  tendencies  of  English  education  is  to 
make  the  learner  absorb  a  number  of  facts  without 
ever  thinking  over  them  or  using  them.  Now  the 
preparing  of  Compositions  and  Speeches  should  make 
him  think  over  and  review  his  mental  stock-in-trade 
from  time  to  time,  and  should  encourage  him  to  add 
to  this  stock,  that  is,  to  read,  listen,  ask  questions,  and 
meditate.  It  should  also  give  him  greater  activity  in 
putting  his  stock-in-trade  to  some  use  :  otherwise  the 
masses  of  materials  might  either  lie  uncultivated,  or 
might  at  any  rate  be  very  difficult  to  utilise. 

Besides  this,  the  preparing  of  Compositions  and 
Speeches  should  encourage  business-like  qualities  :  not 
only  should  it  train  people  into  the  habit  of  going 
straight  to  the  point,  but  in  many  ways  it  should  save 
time  and  exertion.  Time  and  exertion  are  not  abso- 
lutely the  same  as  money,  but  still  he  who  saves  time 
and  saves  exertion  has  more  chance  of  saving  and 
making  money. 

3 


4  INTRODUCTION  AND   SUMMARY 

Another  faculty  which  is  very  much  wanting  in 
England  is  the  faculty  of  speaking  well  and  readily 
and  without  nervousness.  In  many  American  Schools, 
the  children  are  taught  to  make  speeches  at  a  moment's 
notice.  In  England,  people  are  not  wont  to  have  their 
Ideas  ready  collected  or  ready  arranged,  and,  when 
suddenly  called  upon  to  speak,  they  have  to  give  most 
of  their  attention  to  the  collecting  and  arranging  of  the 
Ideas ;  the  result  of  it  is  that  they  often  express  these 
Ideas  not  only  without  Rhythm,  but  even  without 
Grammar.  For,  if  they  have  to  think  of  ivJiat  they 
are  to  say,  viz.  the  Subject-Matter,  they  cannot  possibly 
give  their  full  attention  to  Jiow  they  are  to  say  it,  viz. 
the  Expression  and  Style. 

Essay-writing  and  Speaking,  so  far  as  the  actual 
Writing  and  Speaking  are  concerned,  will  force  students 
to  give  defiiiite  shape  to  their  Ideas :  how  little  we  can 
tell  whether  we  really  understand  a  given  Idea  or  not, 
until  we  have  tried  to  put  it  in  words,  to  describe  it 
to  someone  else. 

The  immediate  advantages  of  being  able  to  write 
Books,  etc.,  are  almost  too  obvious  to  need  mention. 
With  regard  to  the  writing  of  Books  in  modern  times, 
two  considerations  might  be  passed  by  unless  attention 
were  called  to  them.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  far 
more  division  of  labour  in  the  writing  of  Books :  so 
that,  even  if  a  person  cannot  write  a  whole  Book,  that 
person  may  nevertheless  be  able  to  do  some  part  of 
the  work.  At  present  we  hear  chiefly  of  Index- Makers 
and  of  people  who  prepare  Summaries,  but  one  day  we 
may  find  the  work  of  Book-writing  subdivided  to  such 
an  extent  that  some  people  will  be  able  to  Collect 
Ideas,  other  people  will  be  able  to  Arrange  them,  and 


ADVANTAGES   OF   WRITING    WELL  5 

other  people  will  lLxi)re.ss  them  in  good  language. 
Others  again  will  Criticise,  and  will  polish  up  the  work 
as  a  complete  whole. 

The  second  consideration  is  that,  if  a  person  cannot 
write  a  Book,  at  any  rate  he  or  she  may  be  able  to 
write  an  Article  ;  for  day  by  day  Articles  are  becoming 
more  common  than  Books.  Essays  (see  the  Preface) 
have  lately  been  introduced  universally  into  Cambridge 
iCxaminations,  and  more  and  more  attention  is  being 
paid  to  them.  But,  quite  apart  from  this  '  Scholastic  ' 
movement,  and  the  increase  of  Essay-writing  in  Schools, 
the  number  of  UTagasincs  is  growing  larger  every  year, 
and  those  who  can  write  Articles  for  them  are  in  a 
position  to  earn  quite  a  large  income.  The  Articles 
are  paid  for  at  different  rates,  but,  allowing  about 
2  or  3  guineas  for  an  ordinary  Article  of  3000  words, 
the  reader  can  easily  see  how  many  Articles  it  would 
lake  to  make  an  income  of,  say,  two  hundred  and  fifty 
a  year;  it  would  mean  about  80  to  120  Articles.  If  a 
Writer  of  fair  ability  practised  each  part  of  the  art  of 
Ivssay-writing  quite  separately,  then  he  should  soon  be 
able  to  write  an  ordinar)'  /Xrticle  in  a  single  day. 

Yet  another  point  is  to  be  noticed.  Those  who  can- 
not write  whole  Articles  can  at  least  write  Paragraphs. 
The  number  of  Newspapers  is  increasing,  and  every 
Newspaper  wants  many  Paragraphs  on  many  topics. 
He  who  practises  Collecting  and  Arranging  and  Ex- 
pressing Ideas  can  write  a  readable  and  interesting 
Paragraph  in  a  very  few  minutes.  Such  papers  as  the 
"  Daily  Mail "'  pa}-  well  for  interesting  Paragraphs,  and 
here  again  quite  a  respectable  income  might  be  earned. 

But  the  preparing  of  Essays,  Speeches,  etc.,  should 
have  far  more  wideK'  reaching  effects  than  these.   Pcrhaj^s 


6  INTRODUCTION  AND  SUMMARY 

as  much  as  anything  else  it  should  tend  to  encourage 
honesty  and  fairness  and  ope7i-niindedness.  Until  a 
person  prepares  an  Essay  or  Speech  with  a  view  to 
showing  it  or  imparting  it  to  others,  he  probably  does 
not  realise  a  quarter  of  the  Ideas  which  the  subject 
may  suggest.  When,  howev-er,  he  has  forced  himself  to 
detect  fallacies  in  his  own  views,  then  his  power  of 
seeing  both  sides  of  a  question  and,  with  an  impartial 
and  unbiassed  candour,  showing  them  to  others  also, 
will  grow  almost  beyond  belief.  By  exposing  fallacies, 
he  will  devclope  his  reasoning  powers  wonderfully. 

This  does  not  merely  affect  arguments  and  writings : 
it  affects  the  whole  of  life.  One  is  perpetually  being 
brought  face  to  face  with  some  custom,  and,  unless  one 
has  practised  fair  and  ojjen  reasoning,  and  has  learnt  to 
see  both  sides  of  a  question,  one  is  apt  to  follow  blindly 
as  a  slave  of  Custom,  and  so  to  be  doing  something 
altogether  wrong,  even  when  this  '  something '  be  in- 
jurious or  dishonest.  The  man  who  has  discussed  all 
kinds  of  questions  with  himself,  not  as  a  partisan,  but  as 
a  searcher  after  truth  (as  the  Essayist  should  be),  will 
not  tamely  allow  himself  to  obey  others  implicitly  :  his 
whole  life  will  be  more  and  more  guided  by  Reason, 
and  less  and  less  by  Custom. 

And  this  does  not  concern  himself  alone  :  he  will  be 
able  not  only  to  judge  better  for  himself,  but  also  to 
help  others  to  judge  better  for  themselves. 

This  will  be  especially  the  case  in  Teaching.  In  fact, 
we  might  say  that  Teaching  is  quite  impossible  unless 
the  Teacher  has  those  qualities  and  advantages  which 
should  come  from  the  preparing  of  Essays  and  Speeches. 
Among  such  qualities  would  be  prompt  Reasoning  and 
the  rapid  Collection  of  Ideas  (which  will  encourage  and 


ADVAyTAGES   OF  S/EAA'/AT.    WELL  7 

will  in  turn  be  helped  by  wide  readincj  and  careful 
thought  and  discussion),  the  Selecting  and  '  Proportion- 
ing' of  Ideas  (which  will  force  the  Writer  to  ask 
himself  what  is  important  and  w^hat  is  not).  Then 
again  there  will  be  the  Arranging  of  Ideas,  and  the 
Connecting  of  one  Idea  with  another,  and  this  will 
be  a  great  help  for  the  Memory.  Besides  this,  the 
Ideas  and  their  Expression  wall  become  far  clearer; 
and  a  person  will  be  able  almost  unconsciously  to  think 
of  a  good  Comparison  or  Contrast  when  he  wishes 
to  explain  something  or  to  Emphasise  it.  In  working 
out  these  Comparisons  and  Contrasts,  he  cannot  fail 
to  increase  his  SyvipatJiy  with  the  readers  and  with 
people  in  general ;  for  he  \\\\\  be  bound  to  ask  himself 
'  What  interests  the  reader  ? '  and  '  What  Motives  can 
I  appeal  to  ?  ' 

This  power  of  interesting  others,  and  of  persuading 
them  and  convincing  them,  is  essential  to  Teaching 
in  the  wider  sense,  i.e.  influencing  others  b\^  an)'thing 
that  we  say. 

One  or  two  details  may  be  mentioned  in  conclusion. 

The  Practice  of  Rhythm  must  have  some  effect  upon 
the  mind  itself,  though  the  exact  effect  is  not  yet 
known  ;  but  a  quality  which  it  may  perhaps  help  con- 
siderably is  general  Neatness. 

So  far  we  have  spoken  especially  of  the  Effects  upon 
the  intellect  and  character,  but  there  still  remains  one 
more  effect,  nameh',  the  effect  it  has  in  giving  pleasure 
to  others  as  well  as  to  oneself.  Among  the  greatest 
of  pleasures,  and  among  the  purest,  is  that  of  helping 
others ;  and,  quite  apart  from  this,  a  vast  deal  of 
pleasure  can  come  from  the  mere  reading  of  a  number 
of  good  Ideas  well  arranged  and  well  expressed. 


8  INTRODUCTION  A^D  SUMMARY 

The  satisfaction  which  such  a  piece  of  reading  may 
give  both  to  the  Writer  and  to  the  reader  must  not 
be  left  out  of  account.  It  is  only  recently  that  people 
have  investigated  the  effect  of  pleasurable  feelings 
upon  the  whole  body  and  upon  its  power  for  work  ; 
and  nowadays,  before  subjects  are  recommended  for 
study,  it  ought  first  to  be  asked  whether  these  subjects 
are  likely  to  be  not  only  interesting  but  also  pleasant. 
With  regard  to  Essay-Writing  and  Speaking,  one  may 
safely  say  that,  when  once  the  first  drudgery  is  over, 
they  are  certain  to  be  both  interesting  and  pleasant. 

And,  however  good  may  be  the  effects  of  Writing 
well  and  Speaking  well,  they  will  become  still  better 
if  these  arts  are  learnt  and  practised  in  the  right  way 
instead  of  bcinc:  left  'to  cret  themselves  taueht'. 


CHAPTER    II.     COMMON  TYPES  OF  SUBJECTS 
FOR  COMPOSITIONS, 


I  SHALL  here  mention  and  give  examples  of  only  one 
or  two  of  the  commonest  types  of  Essay-Subjects :  the 
reader  can  easily  add  other  examples  and  other  types 
from  his  own  experience  or  imagination. 

I. 

1.  A  very  usual  type  of  subject  is  that  which  in- 
volves as  it  were  a  bird's-eye  view  of  things  in  general. 
'Rome  under  the  Empire',  or  'London  to-day',  or  a 
Comparison  between  the  two,  would  be  specimens. 
The  Writer  is  at  a  loss  to  know  what  to  mention 
and  what  to  omit :  if  he  onl)'  had  a  comj)lete  List  o( 
1  leadings,  then  he  would  be  better  able  to  select.  This 
Essay,  then,  may  be  called  a  Period-Essay,  as  it  in- 
volves an  all-round  review  of  a  Period  (e.g.  its  Govern- 
ment, Religion,  Education,  and  Commerce).    See  p.  83. 

2.  But  an  all-round  review  of  a  Period  is  needed  for 
many  other  Essay-Subjects  besides  this.  '  The  Rcsulis 
of  Democracy  (e.g.  in  England)',  or,  in  fact,  the  Results 
of  many  things,  need  this  review  also.  Otherwise,  how 
can  we  tell  where  Democracy's  Results  are  to  be  looked 
for,  or  what  they  are  ?  The  Results  maj-  extend  to  all 
sorts  of  spheres,  and,  unless  we  do  review  the  Period, 
we  shall  be  in  danger  of  passing  by  some  sphere  of  the 
very  greatest  importance. 

9 


lo  IXTRUDUCTION  AND  SUMMARY 

3.  '  The  Causes  of  England's  Success '  will  also  need 
this  all-round  review.  For  what  sphere  ma)-  not  have 
had  its  influence  (e.g.  Geograph)-,  Government,  Religion, 
or  Commerce)?  And,  unless  we  look  everywhere,  we 
shall  almost  certainly  omit  some  powerful  Cause. 

So  Causes  of  events,  or  of  phenomena,  as  a  rule  de- 
mand the  Period- Headings  also. 

4.  And  this  will  apply  also  to  Essays  on  Hindrances. 
'What  are  the  Obstacles  to  a  union  with  America 
(Russia,  France,  etc.)  ?  ' 

So  far,  then,  these  Headings  are  required  for  an 
Essay  on  a  Period,  for  an  Essay  on  two  or  more 
Periods  compared  and  contrasted,  for  an  Essay  on 
Results,  and  for  an  Essay  on  Causes,  or  on  Hindrances. 
Is  there  any  other  subject  where  they  arc  required? 

5.  'The  Sphere  of  Government-control'  (what  it  is 
and  what  it  should  be)  :  this,  again,  needs  the  List  of 
Headings.  '  Does  Government  control,  or  ought  it  to 
control,  a,  b,  c,  d,  .  .  .  ?'  and  so  on  :  those  are  the 
questions  which  we  must  answer. 

6.  '  IVar',  'Colonisation',  'Slavery' — these  are  topics 
often  set  in  Essay- papers.  How  shall  we  deal  with 
words  so  vague  t  Well  here  again  we  must  call  the 
Period-Headings  into  play  when  we  consider  Causes, 
Hindrances,  and  Effects:  though  other  Headings  are 
needed  also,  as  we  shall  sec  directly. 

7.  '■Ignorance  is  bliss':  this  may  be  called  the 
'Proverb-Essay',  or  the  Dictum-Essay.  Put  what  kind 
of  '  Ignorance'  is  meant?  Ignorance  in  Government, 
in  Religion,  or  in  Commerce?  All  these  departments 
of  life,  and  many  others,  wm'11  furnish  us  with  materials 
and  examples  for  or  against  the  Dictum.  What  other 
departments?    Those  which  are  in  the  Period-Headings. 


COMMON  TYPES   OF  SUPJECTS  ii 

8.  A  Person  is  to  be  the  theme?  Tl-.eii  we  must 
consider  (among  other  things)  what  caused  him  to 
be  as  he  was,  what  hindered  him,  what  Effects  he 
produced,  and  what  his  Sphere  of  activity  was.  And 
here  once  more  we  need  to  pass  the  Headings  in  quick 
review  before  us. 

For  the  other  Headings  needed  for  such  an  Essay, 
see  below  (p.  92). 

9.  An  Essay  on  Tennyson,  or  some  Author.  Here, 
at  last,  we  seem  to  be  free.  ]^ut  here  we  are  dealing 
with  a  Person,  and  we  need  to  review  his  Period,  if 
we  would  get  at  the  Causes  and  Hindrances  and 
l-lffects.  And  then,  what  did  he  write  about?  Shall 
we  not  need  the  Period-Headings  here  also?  Was 
it  about  Virtue,  or  Intellect,  or  Religion,  or  what? 

Thus  all  the  above  P^ssays  might  be  classed  together 
as  involving  a  survey  of  the  departments  of  life,  i.e.  as 
involving  a  survey  of  what  we  call  the  Period-Headings, 
But  this  is  not  all  that  they  involve. 

The  P2ssay  on  an  Author  would  have  these  Headings, 
in  so  far  as  the  Author  is  considered  as  a  Person. 
His  Works  demand  them  too :  the  Instances  (i.e.  a  List 
of  his  Works),  Causes  and  Hindrances,  Description, 
Effects,  etc.,  must  all  be  considered. 

II. 

a.  \\'hcn  we  have  an  Essay  on  a  wide  subject  like 
'  Deiiioeracy\  or  'Colonisation',  or  'War',  we  need 
another  set  of  Headings  as  \\cll.  These  are  given 
on  p.  92,  and  include  '  Concrete  Instances  ',  '  Causes  ', 
'Hindrances',  'Description',  and  'Effects'.  We  should 
also  have  '  Evidences',  'Comparisons',  and  'Contrasts'. 


12  INTRODUCTION  AND  SUMMARY 

The  'Description'  itself  has  many  'Sub-Headings', 
as  we  shall  see  on   p.  92. 

These  might  be  called  General  Essay-Headings  :  and 
almost  every  Essay  involves  the  use  of  them. 

B.  The  Essay  on  a  Person  (e.g.  Napoleon)  would 
include  Instances  (i.e.  the  events  of  his  life),  Causes 
and  Hindrances  of  his  development,  Description  of 
Character,  Sphere  of  Activity,  etc.  (see  p.  97),  Effects, 
and  so  on. 

Eor  other  subjects,  the  reader  is  referred  to  such 
Books  as  '  Pros  and  Cons  '  (Swan  Sonnenschein),  and 
to  p.  133  (below). 

The  common  types,  therefore,  though  at  first  sight 
they  may  seem  to  be  very  numerous,  can  mostly  be 
classed  together  under  the  Eornuila  of  '  Essays  which 
require  some  or  many  or  most  of  the  Period-Headings, 
and  some  or  many  or  most  of  the  General  Essay-Head- 
ings (Instances,  Causes,  Plffects,  etc.)'. 

Lighter  Articles  and  Speeches  will  often  bring  into 
play  these  General  Essay-Headings  (p.  92),  and  may 
even  be  much  improved  by  a  rapid  glance  through  the 
Period-Headings  (p.  83).  But  as  a  rule  these,  together 
with  Descriptions  (e.g.  of  scenery),  will  not  require  such 
Lists.  There  will  not  be  the  same  need  to  search  for 
the  Ideas  themselves :  the  problem  will  general]}-  be 
how  to  Select,  Arrange,  and  Express  Ideas. 


CIIAPTER    III.     THE   CHOICE   OF   A   SUBJECT. 


As  I  have  said  elsewhere,  a  Choice  of  subjects  is  not 
always  allowed  to  learners,  who  are  often  all  told  to 
write  an  Essay  on  one  set  Subject,  whether  they  know 
anything  about  it  or  not.  In  such  a  case  Choice  is  out 
of  the  question.  It  may  be  suggested  to  Teachers  that 
they  should  allow  a  Choice  wherever  it  is  possible. 
Either  they  might  allow  a  Choice  of  one  out  of  four 
subjects,  or  they  might  allow  an  absolutely  free  Choice 
within  certain  limits.  I  have  found  a  very  good  plan 
to  be  to  set  tlirce  or  four  subjects  of  various  kinds, 
and  to  ask  for  ScJicdics  of  all  the  subjects,  and  for  any 
single  subject  as  an  Essay  also. 

One  high  authority  says  emphatically  that,  whenever 
there  is  a  Choice  of  subjects,  the  Essayist  should 
choose  the  one  about  which  he  already  knows  least. 
This  is  singularly  bad  advice  for  Examination  purposes. 
Far  better  advice  would  be,  "  Choose  and  practise  your 
weakest  subjects  on  ordinary  occasions,  but  in  Exami- 
nations, where  a  great  deal  may  depend  upon  success, 
choose  the  subject  which  you  can  do  best".  In  the 
same  way,  in  Games,  I  should  recommend  an\-one  to 
practise  his  weakest  strokes  in  Practice-Games,  etc., 
but  in  IMatches  to  use  his  best  strokes. 

Apart  from  this,  it  may  often  be  useful  to  choose 
that    subject    which    is    not    only    interesting    at    the 

13 


14  INTRODUCTION  AND  SUMMARY 

present  moment,  but  which  might  be  useful  in  after-Hfe, 
according  to  the  career  to  which  one  is  looking  forward. 

The  Interest  of  the  Writer  must  make  a  great  deal 
of  difference  to  his  Essay  or  Speech,  and  it  is  astonish- 
ing that  Schoolmasters  so  seldom  practise  boys  in  Essay- 
Writing  or  Speaking  on  subjects  about  which  they 
are  really  keen.  I  know  of  one  small  School  where 
a  general  paper  is  set,  for  very  short  Essays,  and,  out 
of  about  fifteen  questions,  there  is  scarcely  one  in  which 
nearly  all  the  bo}'s  would  not  feel  interested.  The 
subjects  are  Games,  Bicycling,  Stamp-collecting,  in 
fact  almost  an}'thing  which  boys  care  about.  But 
this  School  is  an  exception.  There  is  generally  a 
vague  idea  that  such  things  are  'trivial'  or  'frivolous'. 
How  little  do  those  who  say  such  things  understand 
the  Schoolboy's  mind.  A  game  of  Football  '  frivolous' ! 
I  dread  to  think  of  what  our  Nation  would  be  like  if 
for  our  Games  we  substituted  the  ponderous  Gymnastic 
system,  the  "March  at  the  word  of  command".  There 
can  be  no  harm  in  setting  these  subjects,  and,  so  far  as 
Expression  is  concerned,  they  arc  better  practice  than 
anything  else,  because  the  Essay-Writer  or  Speaker  has 
to  devote  less  of  his  attention  to  the  thinking  out  of  the 
Ideas  themselves.  He  understands  them  better,  that  is 
to  say  if  he  is  really  a  boy. 

Besides  this,  it  is  also  necessary  to  choose  a  subject 
in  which  you  can  interest  the  readers  or  hearers.  It 
is  not  enough  that  the  subject  should  interest  the 
Writer  or  Speaker.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  many 
Books  and  Articles  are  rejected  by  Publishers  and 
Editors.  The  subjects  are  thought  either  to  be  non- 
popular  or  at  any  rate  to  have  been  treated  in  a 
non-popular  manner. 


THE   CHOICE   OF  A    SUBJECT  15 

In  addition  to  the  Choice  of  a  subject,  there  is  also 
tJie  Choice  of  treatment:  the  same  subject,  treated  in 
a  different  way,  may  be  (to  all  intents  and  purposes) 
a  new  subject.  For  this,  sec  Originality  (p.  219).  The 
Writer  might  first  consider  a  subject  (e.g.  Ancient 
Slavery)  generally,  by  the  General  Headings  on  p.  92  ; 
then  he  might  consider  some  o)ie  Heading  as  an  Essay 
all  by  itself,  e.g.  Results  (good  and  bad,  for  the  Slaves 
and  for  others),  or  Comparisons  and  Contrasts  (with 
modern  Servants,  etc.). 

To  sum  up,  then  :  in  so  far  as  you  can,  choose  such  a 
subject,  and  such  a  way  of  treating  it,  as  shall  interest 
not  only  yourself  but  also  your  audience. 


CHAPTER    IV.     DIFFERENCES   BETWEEN 
VARIOUS    CLASSES    OF 
COMPOSITIONS. 


IVo/c'. —This  Chapter  may  be  omitted  (or  left  till  the  end) 
wlien  the  Book  is  beins^  I'ead  for  the  first  time. 


In  this  Book  I  have  tried  to  treat  the  different  classes 
of  Compositions  and  Speeches  together,  i.e.  to  give 
advice  which  may  apply  to  all  of  them  collectively.  Ikit 
there  is  a  great  deal  which  can  only  apply  to  some  one 
branch  of  Composition  by  itself.  For  instance,  Chapter 
LXXIII.  will  only  apply  to  Letter- writing. 

The  differences  between  Books  and  Letters,  to  take 
the  two  extremes,  are  very  great ;  and  yet  the  classes 
pass  into  one  another  by  almost  imperceptible  stages. 
It  is  not  a  great  step  from  the  Book  to  the  long  Essay, 
from  the  long  Essay  to  the  short  and  lighter  Essay, 
from  the  lighter  Essay  to  the  still  lighter  Article,  from 
the  Article  to  the  serious  Letter,  and  from  the  serious 
Letter  to  the  ordinary  Letter. 

Again,  with  regard  to  Speaking,  it  is  not  a  great  step 
from  the  series  of  Lectures  (which  may  correspond  to 
the  single  Book),  to  the  single  Lecture  or  Speech,  and 
from  that,  through  the  Debate,  to  the  ordinary  Con- 
versation. 

But  these  various  classes  of  Writings  and  Speeches 
may  differ  very  considerably  from  one  another,  for  in- 
stance in  their  Arrangement  of  Ideas.      In  a  Speech, 

i6 


VARIOUS  CLASSES   OF  COMPOSITION  17 

especially  before  a  popular  audience,  there  must  be  so 
much  more  variety,  so  much  more  liujuoiir,  and  so  much 
more  repetition,  than  in  a  serious  Lecture  to  a  number 
of  specialists. 

A  great  deal  will  dcpeiul  on  the  length  of  the  Compo- 
sition, and  a  great  deal  on  who  the  readers  or  hearers 
are.  Of  course  it  is  generally  safest  to  address  the 
stupidest,  with  occasional  words  here  and  there  for 
those  who  are  more  intelligent,  (jmvaevrd  ^vve-oirri.  The 
Author,  again,  may  be  addressing  simply  the  people  of 
his  own  times  or  the  people  of  future  times  as  well,  and 
he  may  be  addressing  only  his  hearers  or  readers  or 
the  very  severest  critics  as  well.  Much  also  will 
depend  on  his  Ai/u  or  Aims  (see  p.  48),  and  upon 
whether  he  wishes  to  treat  the  subject  seriously  or 
lightly.  Vov  it  must  be  remembered  that  a  serious 
method  of  treatment  is  not  always  suited  to  a  serious 
subject.  A  Taper  like  "  Punch"  has  taught  many  lessons 
which  rabid  fanatics  have  utterly  failed  to  teach. 

Then  again,  an  Essay*  or  Speech  may  be  what  is 
called  Partisau-Wovk,  or  it  may  be  what  might  be 
called  Fair-Play  for  both  sides. 

A  great  deal  more  than  one  would  think  will  depend 
on  whether  the  Composition  is  to  be  Spoken  or'  Written  , 
and,  if  'Written',  whether  it  will  be  read  in  Writing  or 
in  Type-writing  or  in  Printing.  And  even  the  kind  of 
Writing  or  Type-writing  or  Printing  may  be  a  very 
considerable  consideration. 

One  difference  between  Writing  and  Speaking  I  have 

*  An  Essay  has  been  defined  as  an  attempt,  a  tentative  suggestion, 
rather  tlian  a  complete   treatise.     Such  was  its  early  sense,   and   many 
Essays  and  Articles  would  still  rank  as  tentative  ;  but  a  large  number  are 
far  more  than  this— they  are  more  or  less  exhaustive  monograplis. 
C 


i8  INTRODUCTION  AND  SUMMARY 

never  yet  seen  mentioned,  except  in  reference  to  Poetry: 
it  is  that  Writing  is  hampered  b}^  lines.  The  eye  has  to 
pass  from  the  end  of  one  Hne  to  the  beginning  of  the 
next,  and  the  breaks  and  delays,  though  inappreciable 
as  individual  breaks  and  delays,  are  in  their  sum-total 
stupendous.  For  the  delays  generally  involve  a  break 
in  the  thought  itself — a  break  inconceivably  minute,  yet 
(like  the  Atom  of  the  Atomic  Theory)  none  the  less 
real  and  actual. 

For  many  of  the  other  characteristics  of  Speaking 
as  opposed  to  Writing,  I  must  refer  to  p.  384.  Here  I 
need  only  allude  to  one  or  two  more  of  them. 

If  a  Speech  or  Composition  is  to  be  spoken  and  heard, 
then  there  is  a  chance  of  Illustrations  from  the  sur- 
roundings, or  from  Maps  or  Diagrams,  or  by  some  other 
means  (for  instance.  Plans  drawn  on  a  Black-board).  But, 
even  with  these  helps,  what  is  Spoken  must  be  made 
very  much  clearer  than  what  is  Written,  for  this  reason. 
The  listener  who  does  not  understand  a  thing  cannot 
possibly  turn  back,  as  the  reader  can,  and  go  through 
the  sentence  over  again.  If  the  sentence  is  not  under- 
stood directly  it  is  said,  either  it  will  not  be  understood 
at  all,  or  the  hearer,  in  puzzling  it  out,  will  lose  the 
sentences  which  immediately  follow.  Indeed  he  may 
lose  the  whole  thread. 

Now,  as  it  is  hard  to  be  sure  that  any  given  sentence 
will  be  clear  to  all  or  even  to  most  of  the  hearers, 
it  will  often  be  safer  to  repeat  the  Idea,  to  approach 
it  from  different  points  of  view  (see  p.  181),  and  not  to 
try  to  pack  as  many  Ideas  as  possible  into  as  small  a 
Composition  as  possible,  as  Books  and  Articles  often  do, 
and  do  quite  rightly;  one  will  have  to  Repeal  {sqq  p.  270), 
and  (see  pp.  281,  291)  to  give  Comparisons  and  Contrasts. 


VARIOUS   CLASSES   OF  COMPOSITION  19 

This  will  serve  another  purpose  besides  cnsurinc^ 
Clearness.  It  will  iMiiphasise  the  important  Ideas,  and 
it  will  keep  up  the  Interest. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  in  spite  of  the  Repetitions 
and  Comparisons  and  Contrasts  etc.,  the  Spoken  Com- 
position should  be  .iV/cv-Av- than  the  Written  Composition. 
The  reader  can  put  aside  a  Book  when  he  is  tired, 
sa\'ing  to  himself  "  I  will  finish  it  off  some  other  time" ; 
but  the  hearer  cannot  do  this  ;  and  thousands  of  clergy- 
men whose  Sermon  might  be  mastered  if  it  were  in 
print,  and  if  people  could  plod  through  it  a  little  bit 
at  a  time,  can  only  succeed  in  keeping  the  attention  of 
their  hearers  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  at  a  time  ;  the 
other  quarter  of  an  hour  or  more  is  worse  than  useless  : 
it  is  exasperating. 

Since,  therefore,  that  which  is  Spoken  must  have 
more  Repetition  and  Variety,  and  must  be  shorter, 
than  that  which  is  Written  (and  which  can  therefore 
be  studied  at  leisure),  that  which  is  Spoken  must 
of  necessity  have  fewer  Ideas. 

In  Composition,  the  nearest  thing  to  Speaking  is 
Letter-writing  ;  ordinary  Letters  one  seldom  reads  more 
than  once.  Ordinary  Letters,  then,  must  be  almost 
as   clear  and  unmistakable  as  Speeclies. 

It  is  this  need  of  absolute  Clearness  which  nhrkes 
Speaking  of  iiiestiuiable  value  for  Essay-  Writing.  There 
are  a  great  many  Teachers  who  do  too  much  '  Reading' 
and  too  little  Speaking.  I  ha\'e  known  Lecturers  who 
have  practically  never  Spoken  (except  in  the  sense  of 
reading  out  Lectures  from  Notes);  they  have  generally 
failed  as  Lecturers. 

At  the  beginning  of  Essay-Writing  one  should  try 
to  Write  something  which  can  be  both  heard  and  read  ; 


CO  INTRODUCTION  AND  SUMMARY 

this  is  a  very  safe  rule.  For  a  Writer  is  apt  to  be 
obscure  and  dull,  and  a  Speaker  is  apt  to  be  diffuse 
and  careless,  relying  too  mu.ch  on  gesture,  stress,  and 
tone. 

In  all  the  different  classes  of  Composition,  a  good 
many  conditions  have  to  be  taken  into  account.  First 
of  all,  come  the  place  and  the  surroundings — there  is  a 
difference  between  Speaking  in  a  building  and  Speaking 
in  the  open  air,  between  Speaking  where  Illustrations 
are  ready  to  hand  and  Speaking  where  there  is  no 
chance  of  Illustrations.  It  is,  by  the  way,  a  most 
singular  thing  that  open-air  preachers  so  seldom  make 
any  allusions  to  their  surroundings  :  they  do  not  realise 
(as  Jesus  did)  that  the  things  which  can  be  seen  around 
them  ought  to  be  used  as  Comparisons  and  Contrasts. 

The  time  also  has  to  be  taken  into  account,  and,  in 
Writing,  the  number  of  words.  The  usual  number  of 
words  for  an  Article  in  a  Review  will  be  three  thousand. 

The  subject  also  will  make  a  great  deal  of  difference, 
and  besides  this  the  amount  of  work  which  has  been 
already  done  on  the  subject  by  others. 

A  Debate  again  will  be  quite  different  from  any 
other  form  of  Composition,  and  will  require  more 
readiness. 

We  may  now  briefly  summarise  the  different  classes 
of  Compositions,  and  the  reader  will  see  for  himself 
that  there  must  be  many  varieties  in  the  method  of 
treatment,  although  a  number  of  general  rules  apply 
to  all  of  them  alike,  such  as  "  Collect  the  Headings ; 
then  Select  some ;  then  Underline  the  important  Head- 
ings ;  then  Arrange ;  then  Express ;  and  lastl}^  put 
aside,  and  Revise,  and  read  out  loud,  so  as  to  correct 
the  Rhythm." 


VARIOUS   CLASSES   OF  COMPOSITION  21 

I'ii-st  of  all  will  come  the  Book.  The  Summary  of 
the  Book  may  correspond  very  closely  to  an  Kssa}- 
or  an  Article.  Or  the  Essay  or  Article  may  be  com- 
pared with  a  Section  of  the  Book,  or  with  a  Chapter 
of  the  Book.  Here  then  we  have  a  Book  and  an  Essay, 
and  we  sec  what  their  relation  is :  a  15ook  may  be 
like  a  long  Essay,  or  like  a  number  of  Essays  on  one 
subject. 

r)Oth  the  Book  and  the  Essay  will  have  Paragraphs  ; 
and  Paragraphs  themselves  can  form  a  separate  class  of 
Composition,  as  an  P^ditor  of  a  Newspaper  or  Magazine 
knows  better  than  anyone. 

A  Paragraph  again  consists  of  Sentences,  and  even 
a  Sentence  may  be  a  separate  form  of  Composition. 
And  the  Sentence  itself  may  consist  of  Clauses,  and 
these  Clauses  will  consist  of  Words. 

Now  of  all  the  above  Compositions,  whether  they  be 
Books  or  Essays  or  Articles  or  Paragraphs,  the  more 
one  divides  up  and  splits  up  (within  certain  limits),  the 
clearer  the  work  is  likely  to  be.  As  a  model  of  a  bad 
Writer  in  this  respect  we  ma)-  take  Professor  Freeman, 
whose  Paragraphs  last  sometimes  for  a  page  and  a  half, 
or  even  for  several  pages.  Milton,  in  his  History  of 
England,  is  even  worse. 

A  Letter  differs  from  the  above  Compositions  in 
certain  respects,  although  it  resembles  them  in  others  ; 
it  also  should  be  subdivided  into  Paragraphs,  and  a 
new  subject  should  begin  a  new  Paragraph.  See  further 
p.  390  foil. 

As  to  Speeches,  Lectures,  Sermons,  etc.,  a  serious  or 
long  Speech  or  Lecture  or  Sermon  may  be  compared 
with  the  Summary  of  a  Book,  or  with  a  Section  or 
Chapter  of  a  Book,  or  with  an  Essay  or  Article. 


22  INTRODUCTION  AND  SUMMARY 

Supposing  wc  had  a  Debate,  we  might  compare  the 
Debate  to  a  Section  or  Chapter  of  a  Book  (or  to  an 
Essay)  which  answered  or  supported  a  Section  or 
Chapter  of  another  Book  (or  another  Essa}'). 

With  a  Paragraph,  in  Writing,  we  may  compare  some 
of  the  Speeches  which  are  made  after  dinner,  or  (by 
verbose  individuals)  in  the  course  of  an  ordinary  Con- 
versation. As  a  rule,  however,  our  Speaking  takes  the 
form  of  Conversation,  i  e.  we  Speak  in  Sentences  rather 
than  in  Paragraphs.  In  Literature  this  is  not  nearly 
so  common  as  might  be  desired ;  a  great  deal  can  be 
learnt  from  Dialogues  or  Conversations,  since  people 
would  read  them  as  a  change  from  the  stereotyped 
Essay. 


CHAPTER    V.     DIFFERENT   WAYS 
OF   LEARNING. 


Of  the  dirfcrent  \Vci}-s  of  practising-  the  art  of  Teaching 
and  Learning,  and  of  practising  Composition  and  Speak- 
ing I  shall  treat  later  on  (in  Chapters  LXIV.-LXXI.). 
Here  I  wish  to  speak  rather  more  about  the  general 
Trinciples  of  the  art  of  Learning  anyt]ii)ig. 

There  are  numbers  of  \\a\-s  of  Learning,  and  there 
are  numbers  of  Teachers  or  Theorists  who  understand 
one  way  only.  Some  say  we  can  only  learn  to  do 
a  thing  by  doing  it ;  others  say  we  can  only  learn  to 
do  a  thing  by  reading  Books  on  the  subject ;  and  so 
on.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  no-  one  single  method 
of  Learning  can  be  sufficient  for  anyone  unless  he  be 
a  genius.  This,  then,  is  the  first  fallacy  which  we 
expose,  that  there  is  only  one  way  of  Learning,  and 
that  all  other  ways  are  useless. 

A  second  fallacy  is  that  Learning  is  merely  sucking- 
in,  as  it  were,  that  is  to  say  merely  reading  or  listening; 
true  Learning  is  a  great  deal  besides  this. 

The  Learner  must  not  only  suck-in  and  absorb,  but 
must  absorb  with  an  opoi  mind.  Opcn-mindedness  is 
a  (juality  sadly  undeveloped  in  England,  whereas  in 
America  it  is  encouraged  with  great  care.  The  Learner, 
then,  should  listen  or  read  with  an  open  mind,  studying 
not  only  in  order  to  absorb  but  also  in  order  to  under- 
stand thoroughly,  and  to  criticise  and  test,  and  finalh'  to 

23 


24  INTRODUCTION  AND  SUMMARY 

adopt  or  reject  according  to  the  results.  Afterwards 
he  should  make  a  record  (see  p.  354)  of  what  he  has 
learnt,  and  should  meditate  over  it.  He  should  ask 
about  the  various  difficulties  or  doubtful  problems,  con- 
sulting not  only  actual  people,  but  also  Books  and 
Dictionaries,  which  will  tell  him  what  he  u-ants,  perhaps 
more  quickly,  but  anyhow  more  patiently. 

And  not  only  should  he  absorb,  and  think  over,  and 
criticise  what  he  has  listened  to  and  what  he  has  read, 
but  he  should  also  apply  it  and  put  it  into  practice  in 
the  right  way. 

He  should  ask  for  criticism  from  others  ;  but,  if  he 
is  unwilling  or  unable  to  do  this,  he  should  at  any  rate 
criticise  himself,  either  by  looking  at  his  work  after  an 
interval,  or  by  comparing  it  with  some  pattern. 

Ikit  of  all  methods  of  Learning  none  is  better  than 
the  attempt  to  teach  others:  of  this  I  shall  spealv 
below. 

It  is  important  to  learn  as  much  and  at  the  same 
time  as  little  as  possible.  Do  not  learn  twenty 
different  instances  all  by  themselves,  if  you  can  learn 
one  single  instance  and  the  principles  which  it  illus- 
trates, and  then  apply  these  principles  to  other  instances 
also.  For  example,  in  Essay-Writing,  the  Writer  will 
find  that,  in  treating  the  Ideas  or  Headings,  certain 
principles  such  as  Clearness,  Appropriateness,  Variety, 
Connexion,  and  Proportion,  all  have  to  be  considered. 
A  good  model  would  show  him  all  these  principles. 
He  will  find  that  these  same  principles  will  apply  to 
the  Expression  of  Ideas.  He  will  therefore  be  saving 
time  if  he  learns  them  thoroughly  once  for  all,  and 
does  not  have  to  learn  them  tnice. 

A  few  details  about  Learning  may  be  suggested  here- 


DIFFERENT   WAYS   OF  LEARNING  2: 

1.  The  Attention  should  be  concentrated  on  the 
subject,  and  this  needs  an  exertion  of  the  will.  This 
in  its  turn  must  be  much  easier  for  you  if  you  enjoy 
good  health,  and  if  j'ou  take  an  interest  in  the  subject, 
and  if  you  can  introduce  some  Variety  into  it  (see 
p.  251). 

2.  Of  course  }'0U  must  also  nnderstaihl  the  subject 
and  realise  it,  and  a  great  help  to  this  will  be  to  begin 
li'itJi  xvJiat  is  knoii'n  and  familiar  and  easy,  and  to  pro- 
ceed from  this  to  what  is  unknown  and  less  familiar  and 
and  more  difficult.  Comparisons  and  Contrasts  will  be 
a  great  aid.  Indeed,  without  these  a  proper  Interest  in 
the  subject,  or  even  a  proper  understanding  of  the  sub- 
ject, is  almost  impossible. 

3.  Throughout  the  processes  of  Learning  you  should 
observe  and  make  Notes.  This  applies  equally  whether 
you  are  Reading  (p.  352)  or  whether  you  are  Listen- 
ing (p.  358).  Throughout  Learning  you  should  ask 
Questions,  either  of  yourself  or  of  others  (by  word  or  by 
letter,  or  b\-  consulting  Books  and  Articles). 

4.  You  shoukl  also  kee])  in  }-our  Memory  what  j'ou 
have  learnt,  storing  it  [partly  in  your  mind,  and  partly 
in  Notes  and  Note-books. 

5.  What  }^ou  have  learnt  you  should  not  merely 
remember,  but  you  should  also  think  about  and  digest, 
and  this  is  best  done  by  putting  the  Ideas  into  practice, 
and  by  exercising  yourself  in  the  various  departments 
of  Essay-Writing,  one  by  one ;  e.g.  see  p.  361. 

6.  Always  invite  Criticism  ;  and  do  not  be  afraid  of 
criticising  others.  There  is  no  reason  to  criticise  them 
in  public :  )-ou  can  keep  your  work  in  that  depart- 
ment absolutcl}'  private,  and  it  is  generally  better  to 
do  so. 


26  INTRODUCTION  AND  SUMMARY 

7.  As  to  Teaching  others,  you  can  either  actually 
teach  them  by  words,  or  by  Letters,  Articles,  etc.,  or 
you  can  teach  them  in  imagination.  If  you  imagined 
yourself  to  have  an  audience,  or  a  Class  of  pupils,  you 
would  take  more  pains  in  the  preparation  than  if 
you  were  preparing  things  merely  for  yourself  And, 
whether  you  are  Writing  or  Speaking,  the  general 
principle  to  remember  is  that  }-ou  must  appeal,  in 
nearly  everything  you  say,  to  the  very  stupidest  people 
possible.  You  may  take  it  for  granted,  in  Teaching,  that, 
if  the  stupidest  understand  your  meaning,  then  those 
who  are  less  stupid  will  understand  it  also,  and  the 
clever  cannot  possibly  fail  to  do  so. 

Teaching  is  one  of  the  best  means  of  Learning,  not 
only  because  it  forces  one  to  prepare  one's  work  care- 
fully, and  to  be  criticised  \\hethcr  one  wishes  it  or  not, 
but  also  because  it  gives  one  a  sense  of  responsibility : 
it  reminds  one  that  one  is  no  longer  working  for  self 
alone. 

8.  Throughout  Teaching  and  Learning  one  should  go 
over  the  old  work  constantly,  and  not  merely  put  it 
aside  and  never  look  at  it  again  ;  and  one  should  also 
use  Cards  (p.  186)  or  keep  Note-books  in  which  to  write 
clown  from  time  to  time,  and  to  rearrange,  various  hints 
as  to  faults,  improvements,  and  lines  of  research. 


CIIATTER    Vr.     SUMMARY   OF   THE    BOOK, 
WITH   A    RHYME. 


In  this  Chapter  I  shall  try  to  summarise  the  main  part 
of  this  work,  so  that  those  who  have  not  the  time  or 
the  inclination  to  go  right  through  it  may  at  any  rate 
grasp  the  general  plan  of  it,  and  ma)'  be  able  to  refer 
to  liny  particular  Chapter  or  page  for  further  informa- 
tion on  any  particular  topic. 

After  showing  (on  p.  3  foil.)  how  important  and 
advantageous  it  is  to  be  able  to  Write  fairly  well  and  to 
Speak  fairly  well,  and  after  making  one  or  two  sugges- 
tions as  to  the  Choice  of  a  Subject,  I  shall  point  out 
(p.  37  foil.)  some  of  the  General  Principles  of  Com- 
position, such  as  Appropriateness.  What  may  be 
almost  perfect  in  one  Essay  or  in  one  Paragraph  or  in 
one  Sentence  may  be  quite  out  of  place,  quite  bad,  in 
another.  Even  a  slang  word  may  be  the  only  possible 
word  in  a  certain  Context.  'Variety'  (pp.  42,  251) 
will  be  another  General  Principle. 

Then,  on  p.  44  foil.,  I  shall  try  to  give  the  Chief 
Faults  in  Composition.  The  reader  will  see  that  the 
list  is  long:  and  that,  if  he  merely  tries  to  write  whole 
l^ssays  all  at  one  'sitting',  he  is  little  likely  to  escape 
them  all. 

So  the  chief  Diljieulty  in  Composition,  at  least  as  it 
is  usually  attempted,  is  that   a   large   number  of  hard 

27 


28  INTRODUCTION  AND   SUMMARY 

things  have  to  be  done  all  at  once  :  in  any  o)ic  of  thcsj 
the  Writer  or  Speaker  is  apt  to  be  making  mistakes. 
The  difficulties  would  be  much  lessened  if  these  things 
were  collected  together  in  a  list,  and  if  each  Writer 
or  Speaker  found  out  which  were  his  difficulties  or 
faults,  and  if  he  then  practised  special  Exercises  in 
order  to  overcome  them  one  by  one.  For  1  have  tried 
to  make  it  clear  that  difficulties  are  due  not  only  to 
the  complexity  of  the  subject  but  still  more  to  the 
attempts  which  have  been  made  to  teach  it  all  together, 
as  a  single  process.  For  there  may  be  mistakes  in  one 
or  many  or  even  all  of  the  following  Headings — to 
select  a  few  out  of  many : — Collection  of  Ideas  or 
Headings,  Selection,  Underlining,  Arranging,  Illus- 
trating and  Contrasting,  Clearness,  Brevity,  Vigour  and 
Emphasis,  Interest,  Variety,  Rhythm,  Grammar,  Vocab- 
ulary, Punctuation,  etc.  It  was  hard  to  break  the 
faggots  when  they  were  in  a  bundle,  but  it  was  easy 
t(3  break  them  when  they  \\'ere  taken  one  by  one. 

Next  (on  p.  48)  I  have  said  a  few  words  about  the 
Aims  and  Motives  of  Writers  and  Speakers,  for  this 
h.as  to  be  considered  throughout  Composition.  Every- 
thing must  be  appropriate  to  the  Aim  of  the  Writer 
or  Speaker,  as  well  as  appropriate  to  the  subject,  and 
to  the  readers  or  hearers.  In  fact,  there  would  be 
almost  innumerable  ways  of  doing  a  Composition  on 
one  single  subject,  according  to  the  different  Aims  and 
audiences  that  one  had  in  view. 

In  Part  II.,  I  treat  of  the  Ideas  and  Headings, 
showing  that  these  have  to  be  Collected,  Selected, 
Underlined,  and  Arranged,  and  that  Illustrations  and 
Contrasts  have  to  be  found,  before  one  can  begin  to 
express  them.     Part  H.,  therefore,  has  very  little  to  do 


SUMMARY  OF    THE   BOOK  29 

with  Expression  or  Stjic,  though  it  is  impossible  to 
avoid  tliis  branch  altogether. 

On  p.  57  foil.  I  give  one  or  tv.'O  bad  Schemes  of  Ivssa\'s, 
and  then  I  point  out  what  arc  the  commonest  faults 
in  Schemes  of  Essa)-s  generally.  These  faults  are 
faults  in  the  Headings  (for  instance  in  their  Arrange- 
ment) quite  apart  from  their  Expression. 

After  this,  on  p.  60,  I  try  to  show  ivhat  the  Ideas  ami 
Headings  ought  to  be,  that  is  to  say  the  ideal.  For 
example,  they  ought  to  be  complete  (for  the  special 
purpose),  they  ought  to  be  well  proportioned,  and 
appropriate  to  the  Aim  and  subject  and  audience, 
they  ought  to  be  wholesome,  interesting,  and  suggestive, 
and  fair  and  unbiassed,  and  they  ought  to  have  other 
good  qualities  besides. 

Then  comes  the  great  difficulty,  namely,  the  Collection 
of  Headings  and  Sub-Headings.  And  after  general 
ad\-ice  on  this  subject  (see  p.  6^),  I  have  mentioned 
those  Headings  which  are  most  often  omitted,  such  as 
hLvidences,  Fallacies,  Objections,  Comparisons,  Contrasts, 
Causes,  Effects,  etc.  :  see  p.  71. 

In  order  to  give  the  reader  some  chance  of  having 
a  good  Collection  of  Headings,  and  less  chance  of 
omitting  the  important  Headings,  I  have  offered  (e.g. 
on  pp.  83,  92)  a  few  General  Lists,  which  are  not  quite 
complete  but  yet  approach  to  completeness ;  two  of 
these  Lists  will  be  found  sufficient  for  most  purposes. 
One  of  these  is  called  the  List  of  Period- Headings, 
such  as  Geography,  Religion,  Education,  Commerce, 
War,  etc.  (see  p.  S^,) ;  the  other  is  called  the  List  of 
(jeneral  Headings,  and  includes  Instances,  Causes  and 
Hindrances,  Effects,  Aims,  etc.  :  this  latter  List  will  be 
found  on  p.  92. 


30  INTRODUCTION  AND  SUMMARY 

Having  explained  (p.  73)  what  are  all  the  various  uses 
to  which  the  Headings  can  be  put,  I  have  proceeded 
(p.  87)  to  suggest  how  the  Lists  may  be  learnt ;  for  it  will 
be  worth  while  to  learn  these  Lists,  and  to  learn  them  in 
the  right  way.     This  will  make  them  still  more  useful. 

Having  shown  \\hat  are  the  main  Headings  for 
various  Essays,  I  go  on  (p.  95)  to  the  Sub-Headings 
for  various  Essays;  and  I  finish  up  with  Headings 
for  an  Essay  on  a  Person  (p.  96),  on  an  Author 
(p.  129),  and  Headings  for  Literary  Criticism.  After 
this  (p.  133)  follow  Topics  for  Composition,  and  the 
skeleton  of  an  Essay  on  '  Progress '. 

Some  of  the  Headings  are  so  important  that  they 
demand  special  Chapters  to  themselves.  Among  these 
are  : — 

Authorities  and  their  Faults  (p.  139) ; 

Other  Evidences  (p.  145); 

P'allacies  (p.  150)  ; 

Definitions  (p.  159) ; 

Parallels  and  Comparisons  (p.  162  :  cp.  p.  2S1); 

Contrasts  (p.  291) ; 

Quotations  (p.  163). 

So  much  for  the  Collection  of  Headings. 

We  now  come  to  the  task  of  Selecting  those  which 
wc  want,  and  Rejecting  those  which  we  do  not  want; 
and  Chapter  XXXI.  (p.  166)  explains  why  we  should 
select  certain  Headings  :  for  instance  they  may  be 
Important,  or  Interesting. 

The  Headings,  having  been  Selected,  must  now  be 
^  Proportio7ied'  (p.  170).  This  is  best  done  by  Under- 
lining. In  other  words,  wc  must  decide  which  are 
to  be  Emphasised   very    much,  and   which    are    to    be 


SUMMARY  OF   THE   BOOK  31 

I'^mphasiscd   rallicr  less,  and   which  arc   to   be   thrown 
into  the  background. 

Next,  the  Headings  must  of  course  be  Arranged 
(p.  172).  There  are  various  principles,  which  are  ex- 
plained on  p.  17S,  and  these  will  settle  our  Arrangement ; 
but  the  greatest  hel[)  towards  the  mechanical  work  of 
yVrranging  will  be  the  "  Card-System ".  This  is  de- 
scribed in  Chapter  XXXIV.  (p.  186),  and  its  advantages 
are  shown  in  Chapter  XXXV.  (p.  192),  where  the  saving 
of  time  and  energy,  and  the  improvement  in  the  results, 
and  various  other  merits,  are  briefly  touched  on. 

Part  III.  (p.  202  foil.)  concerns  the  Expression  of  Ideas 
and  Style.  It  presupposes  that  the  Ideas  or  Headings 
have  already  been  Collected,  Selected,  Underlined,  and 
Arranged,  and  perhaps  written  out  in  a  Scheme,  and 
that  they  are  now  ready  to  be  Expressed. 

The  reader  will  doubtless  be  amazed  at  the  amount 
of  time  which  has  to  be  spent  before  he  arrives  at  the 
stage  of  Expressing  his  Ideas  at  all.  But,  the  more  he 
examines  the  subject,  and  the  more  he  goes  by  his 
personal  experience,  the  more  he  will  find  it  worth 
while  to  spend  time  on,  and  to  practise  carefully,  this 
first  department  of  Composition,  as  opposed  to  the  mere 
ICxpression.  Indeed  one  might  almost  say  that,  if  this 
first  department  has  been  thoroughly  well  done,  that  is 
to  say,  if  the  Scheme  of  Headings  and  Sub-Headings 
has  been  well  prepared,  the  Expression  \\\\\  be  a  com- 
paratively easy  matter. 

Chapter  XXXVI.  (p.  202)  will  give  General  Hints  on 
Expression,  and  Chapter  XXXVII.  (p.  205)  will  point 
out  the  chief  Difficulties  and  Faults  in  l-'.xpression. 

The  reader  will  then  be  told  how  to  find  out  for 
himself    the    chief    Characteristics    of    any    Author's 


.^2  INTRODUCTIOX  AND  SUMMARY 

Expression  and  St}-le.  He  will  see  a  familiar  passage 
from  the  New  Testament  (p.  212)  taken  and  analysed ; 
and,  having  learnt  this,  he  will  have  at  his  fingers'  ends 
instances  of  nearly  all  the  most  desirable  characteristics 
of  Expression.  And  he  may  find  it  worth  while  to  con- 
sider (see  p.  219)  how  far  he  should  try  to  imitate  the 
Style  of  any  one  person. 

Then  follow  Chapters  on  Originality  (p.  219),  Force 
(p.  222),  Clearness  and  Simplicity — a  most  essential 
consideration  (p.  227),  Brevity  and  Economy  (p.  238), 
Appropriateness,  and  Unity  (p.  243),  Variety  (p.  251), 
and  Interest  and  Suggestiveness  (p.  255). 

In  this  last  Chapter  he  will  see  how  important  it 
is  to  study  the  audience  or  reader,  quite  apart  from 
the  likings  of  the  Writer  himself  The  great  mass  of 
Writers  and  Speakers  forget  to  study  those  to  whom 
they  are  Writing  or  Speaking,  and  the  result  is  that 
they  fail,  not  only  to  be  clear,  but  also  to  be  interest- 
ing and  suggestive  ;  they  go  too  fast  or  too  slow  or  in 
the  wrong  lines  altogether. 

Interest  is  required  especially  in  the  Beginning,  or 
rather  in  the  Beginnings  :  for  instance,  in  the  Beginning 
not  only  of  the  Essay  but  also  (cp.  p.  311)  of  the 
Paragraph. 

Chapter  XLVIII.  deals  with  Connexion  and  Cohesion., 
and  the  previous  Chapter  (p.  261)  with  Endings,  which 
should  as  a  rule  be  Impressive.  There  follows  a  most  im- 
portant matter  for  consideration,  namely  {Foree  and) 
Emphasis.  The  two  are  nearly  the  same,  but  I  have  at- 
tempted to  treat  them  in  separate  Chapters.  The  various 
Means  of  Emphasis  are  described  (p.  270)  and  special 
Exercises  are  suggested,  for  instance  special  Exercises 
on  Comparisons  (p.  289),  and  Contrasts  (p.  295) ;  these 


SU.V.VA/n'  OF   THE   BOOK  33 

Comparisons  and  Contrasts  serve  so  man)-  purposes  that 
they  demand  wliole  sections  to  themselves  :  their  uses 
will  be  found  on  pp.  281,  291. 

No  less  important  than  Emphasis  is  the  Absence 
of  Emphasis  (p.  278).  It  is  of  little  use  to  make  a 
statement  emphatic,  if  you  make  all  the  other  state- 
ments emphatic  also  ;  there  is  a  great  art  in  throwing 
these  into  the  background. 

After  the  Comparisons  and  Contrasts  there  follow 
(p.  296  foil.)  the  uses  of  Questions  and  otlicr  Rhetorical 
Devices ;  but  these  will  be  found  in  more  detail  in  other 
Books. 

Chapter  LVI.  deals  with  Rhythm,  of  which  the  im- 
portance is  very  great ;  but  it  is  suggested  that  Rh)'thm 
should  not  be  considered  till  the  end  of  an  Essay.  It  is 
true  that  it  should  be  constantly  practised  as  a  special 
Exercise,  but  it  should  not  be  allowed  to  engross  the 
mind,  when  the  mind  should  be  considering  the  more 
weighty  matters,  such  as  Clearness  and  Interest. 

After  this  we  have  a  few  words  on  Chapters  (p.  308), 
Paragraphs  (p.  310),  and  Sentences  (p.  315). 

Then  follows  quite  a  brief  section  on  Grammar  or 
Syjitax :  the  cause  of  most  mistakes  in  Grammar  is 
pointed  out,  and  a  safe  rule  is  given  on   p.   320. 

A  safe  rule  is  also  given,  on  p.  324,  as  to  the  choice 
of  Vocabulary. 

After  some  notes  on  Writing,  Spelling,  and  Punctua- 
tion, this  Part  of  the  work  finishes  with  a  few  lines  (p.  330) 
on  the  art  of  Revising  an  Essay,  a  most  necessary  art, 
but  one  that  is  very  little  studied  or  put  into  practice. 

Part  IV.  gives  notes  on  how  to   Correct  Composi- 
tions  (p.  335),  pointing  out  especially  how  each  fault 
should  be  traced  back  to  its  cause  and  classified,  e.g. 
o 


34  INTRODUCTION  AND  SUMMARY 

"Such  and  such  a  fault  is  one  of  Obscurity".  The 
Exercise  to  get  rid  of  this  fault  is,  let  us  say,  to  turn 
passages  into  simple  English:  see  p.  232. 

Of  the  three  Chapters  that  follow,  the  first  is  '  How  to 
Teach  Composition '.  Here  especial  attention  is  called 
to  the  Part-by-Part  System;  the  Aims  of  Teaching  Q-vq 
explained  (p.  345)  in  order  to  show  that  it  is  worth  while 
spending  a  great  deal  of  time  in  laying  the  foundations 
accurately  and  firmly,  since  so  much  of  the  whole  future 
life  will  depend  on  these  foundations. 

Very  much  the  same  advice,  but  adapted  to  the  point 
of  view  of  the  learner,  is  given  in  Chapter  LXVII. 
(p.  347) :  the  learner  is  there  told  Hotv  to  Practise. 
There  are  also  suggestions  on  IIozu  to  Read  Books  and 
Articles,  etc.  (p.  352),  and  on  How  to  Learn  from  Lectures 
and  Speeches  (p.  358).  In  these  two  latter  sections  it  is  as 
well  to  emphasise  the  general  advice,  "  Try  a  thing  for 
yourself  before  you  go  to  an\thing  or  anyone  for  infor- 
mation." You  should  try  (if  there  is  time)  to  work  out 
the  subject  beforehand  ;  and  then,  after  you  have  read 
or  listened  to  the  information,  you  should  note  it  down 
in  a  special  Note-book,  and  if  possible  make  certain  of 
understanding  it,  of  remembering  it,  and  of  using  it. 

General  Hints  and  Helps  are  added  in  Chapter  LXX. 

Part  V,  (p.  367  foil.)  is  more  special,  giving  Hints  on 
Writijig  for  the  Press,  including  the  Correction  of 
Proofs  and  Index-Making,  and  giving  advice  as  to 
how  to  apply  to  Publishers  and  Editors. 

As  Chapter  LXX  I.  deals  only  with  Writing,  so 
Chapter  LXXII.  deals  only  with  Speaking,  and  Chapter 
LXX  1 11.  only  with  Letter- Writing. 

In  Part  VI.  fp.  397  foil.)  I  have  suggested  the  advan- 
tages of  this  whole   System,   especially  the  System  of 


su}r.}rARy  of  T/rr.  book  35 

practisii\c(  all  subjects  Part  by  Part,  by  means  of  special 
Exercises,  instead  of  ti-)'incj  to  learn  the  subject  all 
tdj^ether  by  a  single  Process.  This  is  in  Chapter 
LXXIV. ;  the  next  Chapter  supplements  it  by  giving 
the  Objections  to  such  a  sj'stem  as  mine,  and  answers 
to  these  Objections. 

Last  of  all,  an  Appendix  offers  a  list  of  useful  Books. 


36  INTRODUCTION  AND  SUMMARY 


General  Hints  on  Preparing  Essays  etc.,  in  Rhyme. 

Don't  write,  but  first  think  out  your  aims, 
)-our  public,  and  the  topic's  claims. 


Define  by  Contrasts,  Illustrations, 
Examples,  and  Exaggerations. 


Use  General  Lists,  Objections  state 
and  meet :  but  don't  exaggerate. 


Collect  Main-Headings  ;  then  collect 
Sub-Headings  ;  underline,  reject. 
Arrange  beginnings,  end,  and  sections, 
to  show  proportion  and  connexions. 
Revise  ;  write  out ;  wait ;  read,  reclaim 
th'  obscure,  harsh,  ill-adapted,  tame. 


CHAPTER  VII.     SOME   GENERAL  PRINCIPLES 
OF   COMPOSITION. 


In  learning  any  subject,  after  one  has  viewed  it  as  a 
whole,  it  is  necessary  to  take  it  to  pieces  and  analyse  it, 
and  to  consider  each  one  of  its  parts  or  departments. 
There  are  many  reasons  why  this  should  be  the  best 
way  for  average  learners,  even  if  the  genius  manages 
to  produce  successful  results  without  an)'  such  labour. 
Yet  even  lie  will  find  that  the  labour  of  anal}'sing  and 
of  practising  Part-by-Part  has  not  been  thrown  away,  if 
he  ever  has  to  teach  others. 

In  going  through  the  various  parts  or  departments  of 
Writing  and  Speaking,  it  will  be  of  the  greatest  help 
and  also  of  the  greatest  interest  to  find  any  Principles 
which  appl}-  more  or  less  to  all  of  them,  or  to  man}-  of 
them.  Are  there  any  such  Principles  that  apply,  for 
example,  to  Essay-Writing  in  its  different  departments  ? 
to  the  Collection  and  Selection  and  Underlining  and 
Arranging  and  Expressing  of  the  Headings  and  Sub- 
Headings  ? 

One  of  such  underlying  Principles  certainly  is  Unity. 
Now  this  word  may  convey  very  little  meaning  to  au)-- 
body  but  a  specialist,  and  yet  it  is  a  most  important 
Principle  or  Law.  It  is  easier  to  look  at  '  Unity'  from 
another  point  of  view,  viz.  as  a  kind  of  Economy,  that 
is  to  say,  the  giving  up  and  discarding  of  what  is  un- 
necessary ;  this  is  not  tiie  whole  of  '  Unity',  but  it  is  the 

37 


38  INTRODUCTION  AND  SUMMARY 

most  essential  part  of  it.  We  have  to  throw  aside  and 
keep  out  whatever  is  superfluous,  whether  it  be  in  Words 
or  Clauses  or  Sentences  or  even  whole  Paragraphs,  that 
is  to  say,  whole  Ideas ;  in  a  Book,  it  may  be  even 
necessary  to  the  '  Unity '  to  cut  out  a  whole  Chapter. 

We  might  possibly  define  the  '  Unity '  of  the  Com- 
position by  saying  that  one  ought  to  be  able  to  sum  up 
the  whole  in  a  single  word  or  a  single  sentence,  and  that 
one  ought  to  go  through  the  whole  without  being  able 
to  cut  out  anything  as  spoiling  the  particular  effect 
intended.  But  the  'Unity'  of  a  Composition  as  a 
whole  is  a  very  hard  thing  to  define  at  all  satis- 
factorily :  obviousl)'  the  Composition  should  have  one 
main  subject,  one  leading  and  guiding  Idea,  though 
that  Idea  may  be  looked  at  from  very  many  points 
of  view,  and  though  many  Ideas  ma}^  be  introduced 
which  do  not  scevi  to  belong  to  the  subject  and  yet 
serve  to  illustrate  it. 

As  an  instance,  let  us  take  a  passage  on  p.  212,  One 
would  say  that  rain  and  storm  had  very  little  to  do 
with  a  description  of  a  person  who  was  really  good  ; 
nevertheless  they  come  into  one  of  the  most  admirable 
descriptions  which  we  can  find  anywhere  in  Literature. 
They  are  described  as  beating  against  a  house,  and 
in  the  one  instance  as  having  no  effect  on  it  but  in 
the  other  instance  as  bringing  it  to  its  fall.  They  are 
details,  but  they  serve  to  make  Clear  and  to  Emphasise 
the  main  Idea. 

No  Writer  seems  to  be  going  off  the  point,  and  to 
be  violating  the  Law  of  '  Unity '  and  Economy,  more 
than  Carlyle  does.  As  we  read  his  "  Frederick  the 
Great",  the  characters  at  first  appear  to  us  to  have  no 
more  connexion  with  one  another  than  the  characters 


GENERAL   I'K/XC/J'LES   OE  COMPOSITION       39 

ill  a  Harlequinade,  }'et,  before  the  book  is  done,  we  sec 
that  they  all  throw  some  light  upon  the  life  and  times  of 
Frederick  the  Great  :  that  is  to  say,  they  do  not  violate 
the  Law  of  '  Unity'. 

For  '  Unity '  is  indeed  something  beyond  mere 
Economy.  We  can  divide  up  the  whole  into  its  various 
parts,  and  say  that  the  whole  consists  of  A,  B,  C,  D,  and 
E.  But  wc  cannot  be  safe  in  saying  that  the  whole 
is  no  more  than  a  series  of  parts  (A  +  B  +  C  +  D  +  E); 
for  each  part  exists  not  only  by  itself  but  exists  also  to 
throw  light  on  all  the  other  parts,  and  in  turn  to  be 
lighted  up  by  them.  This  therefore  will  be  another 
sign  of 'Unit)'',  not  merely  that  there  is  nothing  un- 
necessary in  an\-  [jart,  but  also  that  each  part  has  some 
connexion  with  the  other  parts  and  could  not  be  re- 
moved witlumt  the  other  parts  losing  something. 

Within  the  '  Unity'  of  Composition  as  a  whole,  there 
is  a  '  Unity '  of  each  part :  each  Section  or  Paragraph 
must  have  its  'Unity',  each  Sentence  within  the  Para- 
graph, and  we  might  almost  sa)'  each  Clause  within  the 
Sentence. 

The  principle  of  Economy  must  not  be  carried  too 
far  in  any  of  these  parts.  Cleaniess  and  Definiteness, 
and  what  may  be  called  Simplicitx',  are  not  to  be 
sacrificed  for  the  sake  of  Unity.  We  must  leave 
definite  and  clear  Ideas  in  tlie  reader's  mind.  This 
applies  not  only  to  the  Composition  as  a  whole  but 
also  to  every  Section,  Chapter,  and  Paragraph,  to  every 
Sentence,  and  to  every  Clause.  Moreover  there  is  this 
to  be  remembered  :  we  must  not  judge  of  the  Clearness 
of  any  one  part  b)'  itself:  the  rest  of  the  parts  are 
expected  to  throw  light  on  it ;  otherwise  many 
Sentences    would    be    quite    indefensible,  but,  as   it  is, 


40  INTRODUCTION  AND  SUMMARY 

they  quite  justify  themselves  because  they  say,  "We 
are  perfectly  clear  if  you  consider  us  not  by  ourselves 
but  in  our  context ". 

In  other  words,  besides  the  Principle  of  '  Unity',  and 

the   Principle  of   Clearness,   there   is  a  third   Principle, 

'  viz.   Co-operation,     liach  part,  whether  it  be  a  Section 

or  a  Paragraph  or  a  Sentence  or  a  Clause  or  a  Word, 

\  must  be  as  far  as  possible  perfect  in  itself  and  yet  must 

\  be    practically  dependent  on   other  parts,  just   as   they 

'  must    be    dependent    on    it.      We    shall    see    that,    as 

Civilisation   advances,   people   become   more   and    more 

dependent   upon   one  another  ;    and  we   may  say  that, 

the  more  one  nation  comes  to  depend  on  other  nations, 

the    more    likely   there    is    to    be    Co-operation   in   the 

world,  and  hence  something   api:)roaching   to   universal 

perfection. 

It  follows  from  this  that  each  part  of  the  Com- 
position, as  well  as  the  whole  Essay,  must  be  appro- 
priate to  its  special  purpose,  while  the  whole  Composition 
must  be  appropriate  to  and  adajited  to  the  aim  of 
tlic  Writer,  to  the  subject,  and  to  the  people  for  whom 
he  is  writing  :  this  applies  equally  to  every  part  of  an 
Essay.  The  Ideas,  their  Selection,  their  Emphasis, 
their  Arrangement,  and  their  Expression,  must  all 
depend  upon  the  Fitness  for  the  particular  conditions. 
It  is  most  important  to  realise  that  this  Law  of  Fitness 
pervades  almost  the  whole  of  Composition,  so  that 
what  may  be  excellent  in  itself,  or  excellent  in  a  certain 
context,  will  be  even  extremely  bad  in  another  context. 
What  may  be  nourishing  food  for  a  person  in  the  prime 
of  life  may  actually  kill  an  infemt.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  running  about  for  hours  together,  which  is  so  good 
for  the  boy,  would  be  impossible  for  an  old  man,  and 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES   OF  COMPOSITION      41 

niiL^ht  even  kill  him.  Hence  each  part  of  the  Com- 
position, the  Section,  the  Paragraph,  the  Sentence,  and 
tiic  Word,  must  not  be  judged  by  itself,  as  people  arc 
wont  to  judge  texts  from  the  Old  or  the  New  Testa- 
ment, but  in  tlie  light  of  this  question  :  "  Is  it  appro- 
jjriate  to  this  particular  Composition,  to  the  particular 
subject  and  aim  of  the  Writer  or  Speaker,  and  to  the 
particular  readers  or  hearers,  and  the  particular  place 
in   the  Composition  itself?" 

There  is  yet  another  Principle,  which  might  come 
under  the  Heading  of  Appropriateness,  and  that  is 
'Proportion'.  A  Paragraph,  which  would  be  excellent 
in  one  Essay,  may  be  quite  out  of  place  in  another,  for 
there  it  would  perhaps  emphasise  some  Idea  which  in 
this  Essay  was  not  of  the  least  importance  ;  or,  vice  versa, 
a  Paragraph,  which  passed  over  some  unimportant 
Idea  with  a  few  light  words  in  one  Essay,  might  be  out 
of  place  in  another  Essay  where  the  Idea  ivas  of  im- 
portance. Hence  in  evcr\-  part  of  Composition  every 
l)art  must  be  in  proportion  to  its  importance.  This 
is  most  clear  when  we  come  to  consider  the  length  of 
a  Paragraph.  It  is  a  general  rule  that  an  important 
Idea  should  have  a  long  Paragraph:  the  'bulk',  or  'mass', 
of  the  Paragraph  (as  Prof.  Barrett  Wendell  aptly  calls  it) 
should  usually  mark  out  the  Idea  as  one  of  weight. 

The  Beginning  and  the  Ending  are  most  important, 
not  only  for  the  Essay  itself,  but  for  every  Section,  and 
Paragraph,  and  Sentence.  As  a  rule  the  Beginning- 
should  be  interesting,  and  the  landing  impressive  ;  but, 
within  the  Essay,  the  Beginning  and  the  Ending  may 
both  be  used  as  links  to  connect  the  different  parts 
together. 

The    Law   of    Councxioii    is    scarcel)'   less    important 


42  INTRODUCriON  AND  SUMMARY 

than  any  of  the  above  ;  it  might  come  with  the  Law 
of  Unity  and  the  Law  of  Co-operation,  but  still  there 
is  a  distinction.  It  would  be  possible  to  have  an  Essay 
of  which  each  part  contributed  something  to  the 
general  effect,  and  }'et  this  Essay  might  be  wanting 
in  Connexion.  For,  supposing  we  took  the  various 
Headings  and  wrote  them  down  on  Cards,  and  then 
shuffled  these  Cards,  the  different  parts  would  still  have 
the  Principle  of  Unity  and  Co-operation  (to  a  certain 
extent),  and  yet  would  be  utterly  wanting  in  Connexion, 
at  any  rate  in  so  far  as  Connexion  depends  on  the 
right  Order  and  Arrangement. 

Throughout  the  Composition,  and  all  its  parts,  the 
Order  and  Arrangement  are  of  great  moment.  Not 
only  is  it  required  that  each  Word,  for  example,  shall 
be  well  chosen  and  appropriate  :  each  Word  must  also 
be  in  its  right  place.  For  the  particular  purpose  it 
should  be  just  here  or  just  there. 

Last  of  all  one  cannot  imagine  Appropriateness  (to 
the  particular  subject,  the  particular  pur{)ose,  and  the 
jjarticular  'audience'  of  the  Writer),  or  .\rrangement, 
without  a  great  deal  of  Variety :  the  Law  of  Variet}', 
therefore,  will  be  the  ne.xt  Law  we  shall  mention. 

Almost  everywhere  in  life  there  is  felt  from  time  to 
time  a  need  of  change,  and  this  applies  to  every  de- 
partment of  Composition  and  Speaking :  there  must 
not  be  monotony  in  the  Arrangement  of  Ideas,  in  the 
Comparisons  and  Contrasts,  in  the  length  of  the  Para- 
graphs, of  the  Sentences,  of  the  Words,  in  the  Con- 
struction, in  the  Rhythm,  and  so  on.  There  must  be 
Variety, 

But  the  Variety  must  not  be  unnecessary.  It  must 
be    within    due    bounds  ;    it   must    be    appropriate   and 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES   OF  COMPOSITION      43 

adapted  to  the  readers,  etc.  Variety  is  one  of  the 
chief  means  of  securing  Clearness,  Interest  and  Atten- 
tion, and  Emphasis. 

Another  Law  that  goes  through  the  whole  of  Com- 
position, from  the  Ideas  (Headings  and  Sub-Headings) 
down  to  the  indi\idual  Words  and  the  Punctuati(jn,  is 
C  Icariicss. 

Such  other  Princi[)]cs  as  Interest  and  Suggestiveness, 
and  (especially  in  the  luidings)  luipressiveness,  apply  to 
a  great  many  departments  (e.g.  the  Headings  and  Sub- 
Headings,  the  Comparisons,  etc.),  but  can  hardly  be 
called  '  Principles  of  universal  application  '. 

\\'e  cannot  say  that  any  one  of  the  above  Laws  is 
more  important  than  any  other,  for  no  single  one  of 
llicse  Laws  stands  by  itself;  here  one  will  yield  to 
another,  and  elsewhere  this  other  will  have  to  yield  to 
the  first.  In  a  perfect  Essay,  the  Laws  would  be  found 
never  to  go  against  one  another  ;  each  apparent  excep- 
tion to  one  Law  would  eventually  be  found  to  come 
under  some  higher  Law.  Perhaps  the  highest  Law  of 
all,  if  one  //ad  to  choose  some  one  out  of  the  list,  would 
be  the  Law  of  Appropriateness. 


CHAPTER  VIII.  DIFFICULTIES  AND  FAULTS 
IN  COMPOSITION,  WITH  A 
SAMPLE  SCHOOLBOY-ESSAY 
(ANALYSED). 


An  Essay  is  set  on  "Tyrants".  A  boy  sends  in  an 
exercise  which  is  perhaps  very  bad  in  its  Expression 
and  Style  ;  there  are  mistakes  in  Punctuation  (p.  328), 
in  Vocabulary  (p.  324),  in  Grammar  (p.  320);  there  is 
often  a  want  of  Rh}-thm,  of  Clearness,  of  Interest,  of 
Variety,  and  so  on.  But  this  need  not  trouble  us  just 
yet.  Here  we  need  only  notice  the  Ideas.  We  analyse 
the  Essay,  and  find  some  such  Ideas  as  this. 

1.  Tyrants  unpopular  ; 

2.  spend  money  of  poor ; 

3.  but  often  successful  in  war  ; 

4.  cruel  ; 

5.  often  short  reign  ; 
G.  some  patriotic. 

Now  here  are  Ideas  which  are 

a.  very  meagre,  compared  with  what  the  boy  knows  and  could 
easily  work  out :  e.g.  he  has  omitted — - 

Evidences  (very  important  here) ; 
Causes  of  rise  of  Tyrants  ; 
Obstacles  to  rise  and  to  tenure  of  power  ; 
etc. 
p.  all  on  the  same  level  of  Importance,  like  a  picture  with  its 
background  as  distinct  and  detailed  as  its  foreground  ; 
7.  badly  arranged  ;  for  here  wc  ha\c 

1.  a  ])oint  against  Tyrants  ; 

2.  do.; 

3.  a  point  for  them  ; 

4.  a  point  against ; 

5.  a  characteristic,  not  necessarily  for  or  against  ; 

6.  a  point  for  them. 

The  Ideas  are  not  arranged  and  grouped  under  Main  Headings. 
Why  arc  there  so  many  faults  ? 


DIFFICULTIES  LV  COMPOSITION  45 

As  in  Games,  so  in  Composition,  one  of  the  threat 
cliffiCLilties  of  a  learner  is  that  his  Teacher  is  very 
often  one  who  does  his  work  without  knowing  how. 
It  is  'natural'  to  the  Teacher  to  do  the  work  well,  but 
he  is  unconscious  of  the  processes  which  are  being  gone 
lhn)iiL;'h  very  quickly  in  his  own  mind  ;  and  the  result 
is  that  he  thinks  the  work  is  simple  and  easy,  merely 
because  it  is  very  simple  and  easy  to  Jiim.  He 
cannot  put  himself  into  the  position  of  the  learner 
to  whom  the  work  is  very  complicated  and  very 
difficult. 

The  result  of  it  may  be  that  he  tells  the  learner  to 
"  write  an  Essay ",  to  "  be  natural ",  to  "  do  nothing 
consciously",  to  "sit  down  and  not  think  what  he  shall 
\\ritc  ".  The  learner  writes  an  Essay,  or  what  he  calls 
an  Essay  ;  it  is  then  corrected,  and  the  next  week  the 
learner  writes  another  Essay.  By  repetition  and 
practice  of  a  kind  he  improves  up  to  a  certain  point : 
for  example,  he  becomes  able  to  get  through  the  Essay 
more  quickly  and  easily ;  but  there  are  too  many  faults 
to  be  corrected  at  once,  there  is  too  much  to  be  thought 
of  at  once,  in  the  process  of  Essay- writing  ;  and  perhaps 
there  is  not  one  single  part  that  he  knows  how  to  do 
correctly  even  by  itself  How  much  more  must  he  fail 
when  he  attempts  to  combine  the  various  parts  together 
in  a  single  process.  That  the  average  learner  should 
succeed  without  having  acquired  each  part  laboriously 
and  carefully  by  itself  is  almost  an  impossibilit}'. 

Not  one  single  part  has  been  clearly  taught  him,  still 
less  has  any  single  part  been  practised  in  the  right 
way.  When  the  individual  faults  have  been  pointed 
out,  they  have  probably  been  pointed  out  merely  as 
individual   f^iults ;   the  general    principle  has  not  been 


46  IXTRODUCTION  AND  SU.UJ/A/^V 

pointed  out  at  all.  The  boy  has  not  been  told  exactly 
/low  and  zvhy  his  particular  fault  was  a  fault,  and  how 
his  particular  class  of  fault  might  have  been  avoided, 
and  might  best  be  got  rid  of  for  the  future. 

Once  again,  though  he  may  have  done  hundreds  of 
Essays,  yet  he  ma}'  not  have  gathered  any  general 
lesson  which  may  apply  to  all  Essays,  or  at  any  rate 
to  all  Essays  of  a  certain  class.  He  may  have  done 
an  Essay  on  '  The  Age  of  Pericles ',  another  on  '  The 
Age  of  Alexander  the  Great ',  another  on  '  The  Age  of 
Cato',  another  on  'The  Age  of  Augustus',  another  on 
'  The  Age  of  Charlemagne ',  another  on  '  The  Age  of 
Napoleon ',  and  so  on.  Each,  however,  may  have  been 
done  as  if  it  had  nothing  in  common  with  any  of  the 
other  Ages ;  he  may  never  have  been  told  that  in  each 
Essay  there  will  be  i^ery  much  the  same  Headings  to  be 
considered,  for  instance,  War,  Justice,  Finance,  Govern- 
ment, Religion,  Literature,  and  so  on.  He  has  been 
doing  as  utterly  separate  topics  those  which  were  really 
connected  by  many  points  of  similarity. 

The  same  will  apply  to  his  Essays  on  Individuals, 
such  as  Epaminondas,  Philip  of  Macedon,  Tarquin, 
Caesar,  Seneca,  etc.  He  may  have  done  many  such 
Essays  without  being  told  that  in  all  such  instances  it 
is  necessary  to  consider  very  much  the  same  Headings, 
such  as  (see  p.  92)  Evidences,  Parallels  and  Contrasts, 
Effects,  Aims,  Changes,  and  so  on. 

Pie  may  be,  and  is  almost  certain  to  be,  in  a  hurry  to 
begin,  and  very  reluctant  to  spend  time  on  a  practice 
which  cannot  be  without  a  certain  amount  of  drudgery. 

As  he  does  his  Essay,  he  will  probably  'economise' 
paper,  cramping  on  a  single  page,  filled  with  many 
additions  and    corrections,   what    ought   to    have    been 


DIFFICULTIES  IN  COMPOSiriON  47 

sjircad  o\'or  man)-  pages,  and  so  he  ma\'  have  to  rewrite 
a  good  deal  of  what  he  does. 

He  will  forget  to  take  into  account  that  he  will  have 
various  readers,  some  ignorant  and  unliterary,  others 
lazy  and  unenthusiastic,  others  scholarly  and  severe, 
and  others  (like  most  women)  demanding /^rj-f?//^?/  items 
and  details. 

And  thus  he  may  choose  quite  the  wrong  method  of 
treating  the  subject.  The  chief  faults  will  correspond 
to  the  pieces  of  advice  which  are  given  below.  The 
learner  may  ha\'e  made  no  Scheme  of  his  Essay  at  all 
(see  p.  56),  or  (p.  57)  he  ma)-  have  made  a  bad  Scheme. 

As  to  his  Ideas,  see  page  54.  He  may  have  omitted 
Comparisons  and  Contrasts,  as  well  as  a  great  deal  that 
lie  really  knows.  He  ma\-  have  used  no  common  sense  ; 
his  Beginning  may  be  uninteresting  ;  his  changes  from 
one  topic  to  another  ma}-  be  jerky  ;  and  there  may  be 
no  proper  Proportion  of  the  Ideas,  which  appear  in  his 
^^ssay  as  if  the\'  were  all  equally  important  or  unim- 
portant ;  he  may  give  Quotations  which  he  has  not 
[)roperly  '  digested '. 

In  Style  and  Expression  (see  p.  205),  his  Paragraphs 
ma)'  be  too  long ;  his  work  may  be  full  of  Abstract 
l)hrases  and  far  from  clear ;  he  may  have  no  Rhythm  ; 
and,  in  brief,  his  Style  may  be  full  of  faults. 

It  is  to  remove  these  difficulties  and  to  correct  these 
faults  that  the  following  pages  are  written. 


CHAPTER  IX.     AIMS    AND    MOTIVES    OF 
WRITERS  AND  SPEAKERS. 


On  p.  102  we  shall  consider  the  Aims  and  Motives 
which  lead  men  to  act  in  certain  ways.  We  shall 
notice  how  the  Motives  were  liable 

to  change  from  time  to  time  (p.  102), 
to  be  mixed :  often,  the  more  Motives  there  are, 
the  more  incentive  there  is  to  action. 
Similarly,   the    Speaker    may  speak   and   the   Writer 
may  write  with  one  or  more  of   the   following  Aims 
in  view,  or  his  Aims  may  differ  at  different  times. 
His  Aim  may  be 

to    interest    his    audience,    even    if   his    ultimate 

Aim  is 
to   get  for   himself  money  or  fame,  etc.  (or  to 

escape  poverty  or  obscurity,  etc.,  p.  103) ; 
to    please    his    audience,    by    amusing    them    or 

flattering  them  ; 
to   excite   their    reason    ('  For    heaven's   sake   do 
use  your  reason,'  said   Demosthenes) ;   and 
so  to  convince  them, 
to  persuade  them,  or   to  dissuade   them,  or   to 
correct  some  false  opinions. 

We  might  include  here  the  desire  to  elicit 
independent  thought,  e.g.   by  suggesting  a 
problem  to  be  worked  out ; 
to  describe  something,  so  that  the  reader  or  hearer 
may  see  what  the  Writer  or  Speaker  sees. 
48 


MOTIVES   OF   WRITERS  AXD  SPEARER^        49 

to    instruct    thcin    and    improve    them,    and    to 
benefit  their 

body  (e.g.  hcaltii), 
intellect, 

character  and  nn  -rals  ; 
to  glorify  .some  people,  or  to  defend  them,  and 
perhaps  to  vilify  and  to  blame  others. 

It  is  most  important  to  know,  as  far  as  you  possibly 
can,  what  your  Aims  arc  in  Writing  or  Speaking  on 
any  given  occasion.  For  not  only  is  this  a  [)art  of  your 
'  Duty  towards  Yourself,'  but  it  should  actually  influence 
the  whole  of  your  Composition.  You  should  adapt  and 
fit  everything  to  )-our  Aim — after  making  sure  that  )-our 
Aim  is  not  low. 


Part    II. 


PART  II.  IDEAS:  HOW  TO  COLLECT,  SELECT, 
UNDERLINE,  AND  ARRANGE 
HEADINGS,  AND  SUB-HEAD- 
INGS. 


CHAPTERS 

X.    Bad  Schemes  for  Compositions,  and  Faults 

OF  THE  Ideas  and  Headings 
XI.    What  the  Ideas  and  Headings  ought  to  be 
XII.     How  to  COLLECT  Ideas  in  the   Form  of 
Headings  and  Sub-Headings     . 

XIII.  Some  Headings  which  are  often  Omitted 

XIV.  Advantages    of    GENERAL    LISTS    OF 

HEADINGS      .... 
XV.    Headings  tor  an  Essay,  etc.,  on  a  FI'-riod 

with  a  Rhyme 
XVI.    Various  Uses  for  the  Period-Headings 
XVII.     How  TO  Learn  Lists  of  Headings 
XVTII.     Headings  for  Special  Subjects  (e.g.  Colon- 
isation, or  War):  with  a  Rhyme 
XIX.     Headings  for  an  Essay,  etc.,  on  a  Person 
XX.    Sub-Hf:adings      .  .  .  • 

XXI.    Sub -Headings   for   an   Essay,   etc.,   on   a 

Person  .... 

XXII.    Sub-Headings  for  the  Period-Headings 

X.Xin.    Headings  for  an  Essay,  etc.,  on  an  Author 
and  for  Literary  Criticism 

52 


54 
60 

63 
71 


79 

84 
87 

91 
93 
95 

96 
107 

129 


IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC.  53 

CHAPTERS  PAGE 

XXIV.    Topics   lor    Composiiion,   \s\n\    Hkadings 
FOR  AX  Essay  on  Pro(;kkss     . 


xx\'.    authoritiks,    and   their    faults   and 
Failings:  with  a  Rhv.me 

XXVL    uthek  Evidences 

XXVn.     Fallacies:   with  a  Rhyme 

XX\TII.    Dekinitions       .  .  .  . 

XXIX.    Parallels,    Comparisons,    and    Contrasts 
(See  Chapters  LI.-LIIl.) 

XXX.     Quotations       .  .  •  . 

XXXI.     How-  to  SELECT  AXD  REJECT  Headings 
(Unity,  etc.). 
XXXII.     How   TO    rRul'UKTlON   AND    Underline 

THE   Hi.ADlNCS 

XX.XIII.     How  to  arrange  the  Headings 
XXX I \'.    The  Card-System 
XXXV.    Advantages  of  the  Card-System 


•33 

•39 
•45 
150 

159 

162 
163 

166 

170 
172 
1 86 
192 


CHAPTER    X.     BAD  SCHEMES  TOR  COMPOSITIONS, 
AND    FAULTS    OF 
THE    IDEAS   AND   HEADINGS. 


The  chief  faults  in  Essay-writing  have  been  already 
touched  on  (p.  54).  Here  we  need  only  repeat,  in  more 
detail,  the  chief  faults  in  the  Ideas  or  Headings  of  an 
ordinary  Essay  or  Speech. 

(1)  The  Headings  are  i)icompkte.  Nine  Essays  out 
of  ten  omit  the  Evidences, which  (see  p.  147)  should  never 
be  omitted,  the  exposing  of  Fallacies  (p.  150),  and,  in 
a  Period,  the  Period  before  (p.  126)  and  the  Period 
afterwards  (p.  125),  and  (p.  no)  the  consideration  of  all 
the  various  Classes.  Essays,  again,  generally  omit 
Illustrations  and  Analogies  (p.  281),  and  Contrasts. 

(2)  A  good  many  of  the  Ideas  in  average  ICssays  are 
off  the  point ;  the  Writer  begins  all  right  but  is  apt 
to  fly  off  at  a  tangent. 

(3)  Some  of  the  Ideas  are  untrue:  this  may  be  from 
ignorance,  or  it  may  be  from  carelessness  about  the 
Evidences. 

And  here  we  may  class  those  Ideas  which  are  unfair 
and  biassed  (p.  141),  and  also  P'allacies  (p.  150).  We  find 
that  a  great  many  of  the  Ideas  are  illogical :  these  may 
be  classed  under  the  heading  of  Fallacies. 

(4)  In  Books  (rather  than  in  Articles  and  Essays)  we 
too  often  find  Ideas  which  are  not  exactly  untrue,  but 
are  unwholsesonie ;  many  modern  Novels  are  remarkable 
for  their  unwholesomeness. 

54 


BAD  SCHEMES  FOR  ESS  A  YS  55 

(5)  A  good  deal  may  be  quite  true,  and  cjuite  whole- 
some, and  quite  fair,  and  to  a  certain  extent  appropriate 
to  the  subject ;  but  still  it  may  be  quite  uniiitcirstiiig  to 
the  readers  or  hearers.  In  Books  by  specialists  we 
generally  find  much  which  has  very  great  merits,  and 
is  not  so  much  unintelligible  as  uninteresting  to  the 
general  public.  We  do  not  doubt  that  it  is  interesting 
to  the  Writer,  but  that  is  an  entirely  different  matter. 

(6)  We  have  mentioned,  above,  that  most  Essays  are 
wanting  in  Comparisons  and  Contrasts.  This  a  grievous 
deficiency  for  many  reasons  (see  p.  281). 

(7)  The  Ideas  may  also  be  wanting  in  Proportion 
(p.  170).  They  may  all  appear  as  equally  important, 
or  the  unimportant  may  be  emphasised. 

(8)  They  may  be  wanting  in  Connexion  and  Cohesion 
(p.  263). 

(9)  They  may  be  unoriginal  and  copied  direct  from 
some  Authorit}- ;  on  this  point  see  p.  163  foil. 

(10)  The  Scheme  of  the  Essay  may  have  been  bad: 
and  this  suggests  a  whole  host  of  considerations 
(see  p.  57). 

(11)  Last  of  all,  the  Essay  may  be  to  some  extent 
interesting,  but  it  may  not  be  fertile  in  suggestions. 
We  shall  see,  on  p.  357,  that  the  best  Books  and  Articles 
to  read  are  those  which  suggest  most  to  the  reader, 
those  which  make  him  think  most ;  one  often  comes 
across  Writings  which  do  not  encourage  one  to  think 
in  the  very  least ;  rather,  they  seem  to  parah-se  one's 
power  of  thinking.  I  make  a  habit  of  classifying  Books 
in  my  mind  according  to  the  amount  of  new  Ideas  and 
new  lines  of  thought  that  they  have  suggested,  quite 
apart  from  the  Arrangement  of  Ideas  or  the  way  in 
which  the  Ideas  are  Expressed.     Among  such  Books, 


IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,  ETC. 

those  by  L'roebel,  Buckle,  Seeley,  and  Herbert  Spencer, 
come  in  the  very  front  rank. 

I  wish  to  end  this  Chapter  with  two  remarks  on 
Schemes  or  Plans  for  Essays,  Speeches,  etc. 

1.  Many  a  Composition  has  been  a  failure  because  it 
has  had  no  Scheme  :  it  has  been  like  a  house  (possibly 
a  beautiful  house)  built  on  sand,  or,  rather,  like  a  house 

built  without  scaffolding. 

2.  Other  Compositions  have  failed  because  their 
Scheme  has  been  faulty.  The  following  Diagrams 
will  give  a  few  specimens  of  faulty  Schemes. 


DAD  SCHEMES  FOR  ESSAYS 


57 


and  su  on. 


Diagram  I. 


Scheme  Xo.  I  is  bad,  because  it  is  so  cramped  :  there 
is  httle  chance  of  additions  or  serious  alterations,  and 
there  is  httle  or  no  chance  of  re-arrangement.  The 
Ideas  are  not  clear:  they  do  not  give  a  bird's-e}-e  view 
of  the  topic.  r\ilse  ICconom}'  of  paper  is  perhaps  the 
chief  cause  of  error  :  I  say  false,  because  paper  is  of 
far  less  importance  than  time,  mental  labour,  and  a 
satisfactory  result,  to  say  nothing  of   e\'esight. 


58 


IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC 


Diagram   II. 


Diagram  II  gives  a  somewhat  better  Scheme,  because 
it  has  Margins,  in  which  additions  and  corrections  can 
be  written.  But  these  additions  are  ckimsy,  and,  besides, 
re-arrangement  would  be  very  difficult 


BAD  SCHEMES  FOR  ESSAYS 


59 


Diagram  III. 


Diagram  III  is  still  better,  for  it  is  clearer:  it  allows 
of  additions  and  alterations,  and  of  Sub-Headings  also. 
If  little  paper  is  allowed  in  an  Examination,  then  this 
Scheme  may  do  fairly  well.  But,  like  I  and  II,  it  does 
not  allow  of  easy  re-arrangement. 

A  fourth  Scheme  would  be  like  III,  but  would  put 
each  Heading  on  a  separate  piece  of  paper  or  on  a 
Card  (see  p.  iS6).  This  would  be  better,  for  the  reasons 
given  on  p.  192:  e.g.  alterations,  additions,  Sub-Headings, 
and  re-arrangement,  would  all  be  easy. 


CHAPTER  XI.     WHAT   THE  IDEAS   AND 
HEADINGS  OUGHT  TO  BE. 


1.  The  Ideas  should  be  as  complete  as  possible.  That 
is  to  say,  nothing  of  importance  should  be  omitted. 

2.  The  next  Law,  which  will  counteract  this  and 
keep  it  within  due  limits,  is  the  Law  of  Unity,  which 
means  that  one  shall  only  select  such  Ideas  as  belong 
to  the  subject  and  to  one's  particular  Aim  in  Writing  or 
Speaking,  and  that  one  shall  reject  every  other  Idea. 

3.  Truth  and  fainicss  are  to  be  considered.  There 
must  be  )io  Bias.  If  a  biassed  Idea  is  mentioned,  then 
the  Objections  to  it  should  be  mentioned  also.  In  fact, 
fairness  demands  that  both  sides  of  the  question  should 
be  given.  But  (someone  will  ask)  in  preparing  an  Essay 
or  an  Article,  may  we  not  simply  state  one  view  of  the 
case?  Of  course  there  is  much  to  be  said  for  this,  and 
especially  that  it  gives  the  ordinary  reader  one  clear 
notion,  and  does  not  puzzle  him  with  a  lot  of  ex- 
ceptions at  the  outset.  So  far  this  is  all  right,  but 
the  exceptions  and  the  Objections  should  also  be 
mentioned,  and  it  is  a  safe  rule  even  to  exaggerate  the 
case  for  the  other  side. 

4.  Anyhow  the  Ideas  should  be  as  logical  as  possible. 
And  they  should  show  a  knowledge  of  human  nature. 

5.  The  Ideas  should  also  be  moral  and  JiealtJiy. 
Essays  do  not  usually  err  in  respect  of  unhealthiness, 
in  fact,  not  nearly  so  much  as  Novels  do. 

0.  As  to  the  definiteness  of  Ideas,  that  is  also  to  be 

60 


WHAT   THE  IDEAS   OUGIIT   TO   HE.  Cr 

considered.      The    Ideas   sliould   be   quite   clear   to   the 
Author  himself:  for  the  meaning  of  this,  see  p.  228. 

7.  The  Ideas  should  also  be  illustrated  by  Parallels, 
Comparisons,  and  Contrasts.  This  applies  not  only  to 
those  Ideas  which  would  naturally  be  somewhat  hard 
to  understand  otherwise,  but  to  those  Ideas  which  one 
wishes  to  ICmphasise. 

8.  The  Ideas  also  should  show  a  certain  Proportion. 
This  of  course  depends  largely  upon  the  way  in  which 
they  are  expressed  (see  p.  271) ;  but  it  has  a  good  deal 
to  do  with  the  Ideas  themselves  as  Ideas,  and  with 
their  Arrangement.  What  is  important  should  stand 
out  in  the  foreground,  and  what  is  unimportant  should 
retire  into  the  background. 

9.  The  Connexion  of  Ideas  with  one  another  also 
depends  partly  on  the  Arrangement,  and  partly  on  the 
J'^xpression  :  see  p.  263. 

10.  As  to  whether  the  Ideas  should  be  Original  or 
not,  there  has  been  a  great  deal  of  discussion.  There 
arc  some  who  say  that  Writers  and  Speakers  should 
only  write  or  say  what  they  have  discovered  for  them- 
selves. Others  say  that  they  may  write  or  .say  an\thing 
which  anybody  has  discovered,  so  long  as  the}'  them- 
.selves  have  understood  and  felt  what  the  Ideas  mean. 
They  must  make  the  Ideas  their  own,  before  they  hand 
them  on  to  others. 

1 1.  But,  be  that  as  it  may,  the  Ideas  should  be 
Interesting,  not  so  much  to  the  Writer  or  Speaker 
himself,  as  to  the  reader ;  and  one  department  of  this 
Interest  would  be  the  Snggestiveness.  Essaj's  should 
not  merely  give  information,  but  they  should  also 
suggest  problems  and  encourage  the  reader  to  think 
out  his  problems  for  himself. 


62  IDEAS:    now    TO   COLLECT,    ETC. 


What  the  Ideas  should  be:  in  Rhyme. 

Ideas  should   be   the   Auth(->r's   own,   seen   clear   by  liis 

own  c}'es, 
free  from  wrong  Aims,  Omissions,  l^ias,  Fallacies,  and 

Lies ; 
With  Unit}-,  Proportion,  Order,  Interest,  and  Style.'' 


For  the  continuation  of  llie  Rhyme,  see  p.  204. 


CHAPTER  XII.     HOW   TO    COLLECT   IDEAS 

IN  THE  FORM  OF  HEADINGS 
AND   SUB-HEADINGS. 


TlIK  Collection  of  Ideas  (in  the  form  of  Ilcadini^s  and 
Sub-Headings)  must  be  a  process  by  itself.  While  it 
is  going  on,  no  attention  must  be  paid  to  anything 
else;  the  whole  mind  must  be  co7ic€7itratcd  on  the 
Collection  of  Ideas.  Even  the  Sub-Headings  (under 
each  main  Heading)  must  not  be  thought  of,  though 
they  must  be  put  down  when  they  suggest  themselves. 

Above  all  it  is  necessary  to  be  able  to  express  the 
whole  Idea  by  as  fav  zvords  as  possible :  a  single  word 
is  often  quite  enough.  Thus  no  time  will  be  wasted, 
and  the  writing  will  keep  pace  with  the  thoughts.  See 
p.  66  for  some  helps  towards  this,  e.g.  the  Analysing 
of  Books  or  of  Letters. 

Of  course  the  amount  of  time  which  can  be  given 
to  the  Collecting  of  Ideas,  and  the  way  in  which  they 
can  be  Collected,  depends  a  good  deal  upon  the 
conditions,  for  instance  upon  whether  you  have  a  week 
in  which  to  prepare  the  work,  or  only  a  few  hours  ; 
whether  you  can  refer  to  reference-books,  or  whether 
you  are  thrown  on  your  own  resources ;  whether  >ou 
are  able  to  use  the  Card-system  (p.  i86)  or  whether  >-ou 
have  to  rely  on  paper  of  an  ordinary  kind,  or  whether 
you  are  not  even  allowed  paper. 

As  a  rule  I  should  suggest  that  the  Collecting  of 
Ideas    (Headings    and    Sub-Headings)    for    an    Essay 

0? 


64  IDEAS:    IIOIV   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

should  gcnerall}'  take  about  a  tJiird  of  the  whole  time 
which  the  Essay  itself  will  demand.  With  the  extra 
process  of  Selecting  and  Rejecting  Ideas,  and  Under- 
lining them,  and  Arranging  them,  I  should  say  that  not 
less  than  half  the  time  should  be  devoted  to  this  part 
of  the  subject,  before  a  single  sentence  is  expressed  : 
the  beginning  and  ending  Sentences  or  Paragraphs 
may  be  excepted. 

It  is  wonderful  how  the  power  of  quickly  Collecting 
Ideas  increases  with  practice.  I  can  now  Collect 
Ideas  perhaps  four  times  as  fast  as  I  used  to  be 
able  to.  And  not  only  that,  but  I  can  also  form 
far  more  complete  Lists.  The  following  will  give 
some  idea  of  the  relative  'proportions'  in  Essay- 
writing.  On  one  occasion  the  Headings  which  I  had 
Collected  consisted  of  lOO  words.  I  arranged  these 
and  read  through  them  and  mastered  them  in  about 
5  minutes.  I  dictated  them  in  just  under  5  minutes. 
I  wrote  them  down  afterwards  in  just  under  25  minutes, 
and  the  whole  amount,  when  written  down,  came  to 
about  500  A\ords.  On  another  occasion,  when  the 
whole  amount  which  I  wrote  down  came  to  about  looo 
words,  and  the  Headings  again  to  about  100  words,  the 
dictation  (to  a  Shorthand  Clerk)  took  me  7  minutes, 
and  the  writing-out  (by  myself  afterwards,  as  an  ex- 
periment) about  42  minutes.  It  must  be  remembered 
that,  whereas  my  power  of  writing  out  an  Essay  has 
not  grown  so  very  much  quicker,  my  power  of  Collect- 
ing and  Arranging  Headings  has  grown  extraordinarily 
quicker. 

Besides  the  General  Lists  (pp.  83,  92),  other  helps  to- 
wards the  Collection  of  Headings  would  of  course  be  the 
reading  of  Books  and  Articles,  the  listening  to  and  the 


imiV   TO   COLLECT  IDEAS  65 

taking  part  in  Debates  and  conversations  on  the  sub- 
jects, and  the  collecting  and  working  out  of  Parallels, 
Comparisons,  and  CoJitrasts. 

These  latter  are  among  the  most  valuable  means  for 
Collecting  Headings  for  ordinary  purposes.  A  good 
instance  would  be  an  Essaj'-question  like  the  Bonds 
of  Union  between  England  and  her  Colonies.  Of  this 
the  average  reader  kno^vs  little,  or  rather  he  has  little 
that  he  can  say  on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  Let  him 
first  of  all  get  the  underlying  principle,  namely  that 
he  wants  to  find  out  l^onds  of  Union,  and  then  let  him 
work  them  out  ivlierevcr  it  is  easiest  to  work  tJiem  out. 
For  instance,  let  him  ask  himself  what  are  the  Bonds 
of  Union  in  an  ordinary  family,  or  in  any  other  group 
of  people  (such  as  a  Club)  :  he  will  think  of  a  great 
number  of  Headings  in  this  wa}'.  Then  let  him  think 
of  Comparisons  :  for  instance,  the  analogy  of  the  bundle 
(,tf  sticks.  Then  let  him  think  of  Contrasts,  e.g.  what 
it  is  that  prevents  people  from  joining  together,  or  (to 
take  an  extreme  ease)  what  is  it  that  makes  them  quarrel. 

It  is  important  to  leave  intervals,  that  is  to  say  not 
to  write  the  Essa}'  or  make  the  Speech  immediately 
after  the  Headings  have  been  Collected,  but  to  let  the 
mind  lie  fallow  for  a  while,  so  that  new  Ideas  may  come 
to  the  surface.  It  is  surprising  what  a  number  of  fresh 
thoughts  suggest  themselves  at  intervals  when  once  we 
have  been  through  a  topic. 

But  it  is  generally  absolutely  essential  that,  before 
the  Essayist  reads  a  single  word  written  by  anyone  else, 
he  should  try  to  tvork  out  the  zvhole  topic  for  Jiimself, 
jotting  down  those  Ideas  which  are  already  in  his  mind. 
Afterwards,  by  all  means  let  him  add  to  those  Ideas: 
let  him  read  as  much  as  he  can  on  the  subject,  and  let 

F 


66  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

him  look  at  these  Ideas  at  intervals ;  but  let  him 
seldom,  if  ever,  go  straight  to  any  Book  for  information. 
Even  a  few  minutes  spent  in  working  out  a  topic  (see 
p.  353)  will  not  be  wasted. 

When  he  now  has  his  Headings  more  or  less  ready, 
let  him  write  them  either  on  Cards  (see  p.  186)  or  in 
a  permanent  Note-book.  He  may  have  to  re-arrange 
them  at  intervals,  and,  if  so,  the  Cards  will  be  better 
than  the  Note-book. 

He  should  always  have  a  niiinber  of  good  subjects  to 
tlivik  out,  duriiig  odd  moinefits.  The  amount  of  time 
which  might  be  spent  on  good  and  interesting  subjects 
during  each  ordinary  day  probably  amounts  to  at 
least  one  hour. 

It  is  very  well  worth  while  to  practise  writing  down 
Ideas  by  single  zvords.  It  is  a  kind  of  shorthand  in 
W^riting.  One  does  not  write  down  the  whole  sen- 
tence, but  one  writes  down  the  main  Ideas,  of  which 
the  general  effect  will  be  like  that  of  the  Table  of 
Contents  at  the  beginning  of  a  Book  or  Chapter. 
Only  there  would  be  a  difference,  namely  that  the  Ideas 
will  be  written  under  one  anotJier,  and  not  in  a  single 
line.  This  would  also  be  useful  for  Telegrams.  And 
a  good  way  of  practising  it  would  be  to  take  a  News- 
paper, and,  without  looking  at  the  Headings,  to  try  to 
devise  Headings  of  one's  own  for  each  Paragraph,  and 
afterwards  to  refer  to  the  Headings  actually  given. 
Or,  again.  Letters  which  you  receive  might  be  analysed, 
the  analysis  being  kept  e.g.  in  an  Indexed  Note-book. 
Such  a  Note-book  might  be  of  great  use. 

This  power  of  expressing  Ideas  by  single  words  is  of 
enormous  value  throughout  life.  As  I  said  above,  in 
the  Collecting  of  Ideas  the  thought  is  apt  to  outrun  the 


now   TO   COLLECT  IDEAS  67 

pen.  But  when  the  thouglit  is  jotted  down  as  a  single 
word,  or  as  very  few  words,  then  the  pen  can  keep  up. 
Personall)',  I  beh'eve  that  the  habit  of  makin<^  Lists 
of  things  of  any  kind  (e.g.  of  requisites  for  a  journey, 
or  of  presents)  will  improve  and  be  improved  by  this 
Collection  of  Ideas  for  Essays. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  it  is  very  important  to  read 
Books,  and  Articles,  such  as  the  Articles  in  the  "  North 
American  Review"  or  the  "Nineteenth  Century",  and  to 
listen  to  Lectures  and  Speeches  and  conversations ; 
only  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  Ideas  gathered 
up  in  this  way  should  be  reproduced  on  paper  of terzvards. 
If  you  only  have  the  Headings  to  reproduce,  you  can 
write  them  down  in  next  to  no  time.  It  is  also  excel- 
lent practice  for  the  memory.  Afterwards  the  Headings 
can  be  corrected  and  added  to. 

A  fevv'  miscellaneous  Hints  may  be  suggested  here. 

In  Collecting  Ideas  it  is  often  as  well  to  get  what 
may  be  called  Tables,  of  Causes  etc.  (see  pp.  11 2-1 13). 
They  will  enable  one  to  think  of  a  good  deal  which 
otherwise  one  might  forget. 

Secondly  it  is  a  great  help  to  do  this  Collection  of 
Headings  while  the  mind  is  still  fresh,  rather  than  after 
any  hard  work.  Nothing  is  so  fagging  to  most  people 
as  writing  consecutively  hour  after  hour.  At  the  end 
of  this  time  the  brain  is  no  longer  at  its  best ;  so  the 
work  of  Collecting  Headings  should  be  done  while  one 
feels  in  the  fullest  vigour.  This  includes  not  only  the 
beginning  of  the  E.xamination  hours,  for  e.xample,  but 
also  certain  times  in  the  day  (e.g.  not  between  1.30  and 
3.0  p.m.) 

It  must  be  remembered  that,  as  one  writes  down  the 
Headings,  tJic  symbols  and  signs  for  tJiem  need  only  be 


68  IDEAS:    HOW    TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

clear  to  oneself ;  thus  one  can  use  Abbreviations  (see 
below)  ;  and,  generally,  an}-  means  which  brings  a  clear 
Idea  before  one's  mind  will  be  sufficient.  One  is  not 
doing  Headings  for  the  benefit  of  anyone  else  except 
oneself.  It  is  the  Essay  or  Speech  which  is  going  to  be 
read  or  heard  by  others,  and  not  its  Headings.  A 
List  of  General  Abbreviations  is  appended  to  this 
Chapter. 

Between  the  Headings  there  should  be  spaces,  so  that 
additions  can  be  made,  and  so  that  the  whole  result 
can  stand  out  more  clearly.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to 
economise  paper.  And,  in  the  Arrangement  of  Headings, 
the  principle  of  indentation  should  be  used  :  that  is  to 
say,  the  main  Headings  should  stand  underneath  one 
another,  and  the  Sub-Headings  should  be  a  little  to  the 
right,  a  little  inland,  again  underneath  one  another. 
This  would  be  illustrated  by  the  Diagram  on  p.  59. 

When  the  Headings,  and  then  the  Sub-Headings, 
have  been  Collected,  each  can  be  gone  through  and 
revised.  And  a  Scheme  can  now  be  made,  perhaps 
on  a  single  large  page.  Occasionally  it  will  be  found 
that,  while  one  is  actually  writing  out  the  Essay,  new 
Headings  will  occur,  being  suggested  by  something 
which  one  has  not  worked  out  fully  before.  These 
should  be  added  to  one's  Scheme. 

The  Scheme  should  not  tie  the  Writer  or  Speaker 
down  :  it  is  meant  to  help  him  and  not  to  hamper  him, 
so  that  omissions,  additions,  alterations,  and  even 
changes  in  the  Arrangement,  can  be  made  as  the  Essay 
is  being  written  out  or  as  the  Speech  is  being  spoken. 
And  of  course  the  occasional  practice  of  an  Essay  or 
Speech  without  a  Scheme  at  all  will  be  an  excellent 
lesson  in  promptitude. 


HOW   TO  COLLECT  IDEAS  69 

It  may  be  interesting  to  the  reader  to  know  that  the 
dictation  of  this  Chapter  to  a  Shorthand  Clerk,  from 
a  set  of  simple  Headings,  took  about  20  minutes.  It 
will  give  some  idea  of  how  much  of  the  Essay  is  prac- 
tically already  done  by  the  time  that  the  Headings  have 
been  Collected,  and  Arranged,  etc.  Of  the  Arrange- 
ment of  Headings  I  shall  sj^eak  in  a  subsequent 
Chapter. 

In  conclusion,  I  would  add  that  I  believe  that  the 
habit  of  Collecting  Ideas  (as  Headings  and  Sub- 
Headings)  will  develope  a  general  habit  of  Collecting, 
and  that,  conversely,  the  habit  of  Collecting  other 
things  (e.g.  things  for  a  journe}')  will  develope  the 
si)ecial  habit  of  Collecting   Ideas. 


70  IDEAS:    HOW    TO   COLLECT,  ETC. 


A  few  General  Abbreviations  (useful  for  Schemes, 
and  for  the  Card-System). 

'.■  because,  for 
.".  therefore,  and  so 

=  is  equivalent  to,  corresponding  to,  etc. 
>  is  greater  than,  is  better  than,  conquers,  etc. 
<  is  smaller  than,  is  inferior  to,  is  conquered  by,  etc, 
—  without,  apart  from 
+  in  addition  to,  with  the  help  of 
)(  is  contrasted  with,  in  opposition  to,  etc. 
^  developes  into,  produces,  (?  causes),  etc. 
<-  is  produced  by,  (.''  is  caused  by),  etc. 
II    in  proportion  to 
t  see  above 
1-  see  below. 


CHAPTIlR    XIII.     SOME    HEADINGS    WHICH   ARE 
OFTEN   OMITTED. 


Those  who  look  over  Essays,  or  who  hear  Speeches, 
and  who  are  not  utterly  uncritical  or  unoriginal,  and 
who  do  not  concentrate  their  attention  on  the  Ex- 
pression and  St}'le,  cannot  fail  to  notice  the  frequent 
Omission  of  many  Ideas  which  seem  to  them  to  be 
important  or  even  indispensable. 

Examples  will  be  given  below  (e.g.  see  p.  79),  but 
here  let  me  briefly  note  a  few  of  the  commonest 
Omissions. 

We  have  a  Composition  on  some  Period,  let  us  say 
'The  Age  of  Louis  the  XlVth':  we  analyse  it  into 
Headings,  and  we  find  that  no  mention  is  made  e.g.  of 

tJie  A  lit hori tics  and  Evidences,  and  Fallacies  ; 

the  Previous  Age,  which  will  give  some  of  the 
Causes  and  Hindrances  (p.  126); 

the  Subsequent  Age,  which  will  give  some  of  tJie 
Results  and  Reactions  (p.  125); 

Changes  within  the  Age  itself,  which  will  give  the 
tendencies  (p.  127) ; 

certain  Departments,  such  as  the  condition  of  the 
Poor,  the  condition  of  Women,  Finance,  and  so  on 
(p.  ^i):    see  also  the  Classes,  on  [).   no; 

Co)nparisons  and  Contrasts  with  other  Ages  (pp.  279, 
281,  291). 


72  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,  ETC. 

And  so  with  other  subjects.  We  have  a  Composition 
on  Cicero  as  an  Individual,  and  here  again  we  find  no 
Authorities  or  Evidences,  no  'Hindrances'  (p.  97),  no 
Comparisons  and  Contrasts  (p.  104),  and  no  account  of 
his  Family  and  Social  Life,  and  so  on. 

Obviously  there  is  need  of  something  to  suggest 
these  Headings. 


CHArTER    XIV.     ADVANTAGES    OF   GENERAL 
LISTS    OF    nEADINGS. 


The  General  Lists,  which  will  be  given  below,  will  at 
first  look  like  a  system  of  cramming.  They  will  seem 
as  if  they  were  giving  information  in  a  very  compact 
form.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  do  not  give  in- 
formation, but  ask  questions,  namely  "  What  do  )'ou 
know  about  the  following  topic?"  It  is  as  if  an 
architect,  before  he  began  his  house,  were  to  have  a 
complete  list  of  rooms  which  might  be  wanted.  If 
he  had  such  a  list  he  could,  without  trouble,  select 
those  rooms  which  he  wanted,  and  reject  the  rest, 
whereas  otherwise  he  might  possibly  forget  something 
of  importance.  This  is  the  real  advantage  of  a 
General  List. 

Or,  again,  a  General  List  may  be  compared  to  a 
shop  full  of  things.  The  customer  goes  in  and  asks 
for  (let  us  say)  ten  things,  and,  if  the  shop  has  a 
complete  stock,  those  ten  things  are  easily  selected, 
especially  if  the  shop  is  neatly  arranged.  In  the  shop 
there  may  be  thousands  of  things  which  are  not  used 
at  all,  but  the  great  point  is  that  those  which  ai-e  to  be 
used  can  be  selected  at  once  and  without  waste  of  time 
or  trouble.  In  travelling,  in  the  same  way,  it  is  usually 
much  better  to  take  too  many  things  than  too  icw. 

I.  The  advantages  of  having  a  General  List  of  Head- 
ings for  an   Essay  or  Speech  do  not  appear  until  one 

7j 


74  IDEAS:    now   TO   COLLECT,    ETC. 

has  tried  to  write  the  Essay  without  such  a  List  (see 
p.  79).  Supposing  a  class  at  a  School  had  prepared  a 
lesson,  and  then  the  schoolmaster  said  "  Write  out  what 
\-ou  remember  of  the  lesson  ",  the  result  would  be  very- 
muddled  and  very  incomplete.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  master  asks  questions.  He  picks  the  lesson  to 
pieces,  and  asks  about  its  various  parts.  The  questions 
zvJiicJi  lie  asks  are  not  tJieniselves  information,  but  a  means 
of  eliciting  information. 

2.  The  Lists  will  of  course  differ  for  different  Essays 
and  Speeches,  but  it  is  surprising  to  find  to  how  many 
topics  the  two  Lists  on  pp.  83  and  92  will  apply.  A 
collection  of  such  topics  is  given  on  p.  183,  and  it  might 
almost  be  said  that  these  two  General  Lists  are  sufficient 
for  the  main  Headings  of  most  topics,  and  that  then  a 
List  of  Sub- Headings  for  these  main  Headings  might 
perhaps  be  mastered  in  addition. 

When  once  the  Lists  have  been  thoroughly  learnt 
and  practised,  then  they  can  easily  be  applied  to  almost 
any  given  subject.  It  will  not  make  much  difference 
whether  the  subject  be  Aristocracy,  Democracy,  or 
Monarchy  (in  political  Essays  or  Speeches).  The  Head- 
ings will  be  very  much  the  same  for  all.  It  docs  not 
matter  very  much  whether  the  Person  be  Caesar  or 
Pericles  or  Napoleon  or  Nelson  :  the  General  Headings 
for  the  Individual,  and  for  the  special  departments, 
such  as  War,  will  apply  to  all  these  equally. 

3,  And,  if  these  Lists  are  mastered,  there  will  be  no 
Omission  of  any  important  subject.  One  of  the  most 
maddening  features  of  an  Examination,  for  the  examined, 
is  that  he  seldom  puts  down  all  that  he  knows  :  he  may 
really  k7iozv  the  subject,  but  at  the  particular  moment 
lie   cannot   bring   it   tu   the  surface   of  his   mind.     His 


GENERAL  LISTS  OF  HEADINGS  75 

mind  may  be  compared  to  a  pond,  and  the  information 
which  he  wants  to  get  hold  of  may  be  compared  to  20 
fishes.  The  20  fishes  are  in  the  pond  all  right,  but  the 
difficulty  is  to  catch  them,  and  in  an  Examination  the 
chance  of  '  catching '  is  extraordinarily  small.  It  is 
possible  to  catch  15  out  of  the  20,  but  how  are  the 
other  5  to  be  secured?  In  an  Essay  or  Speech  exactly 
the  same  difficulty  will  be  found.  Probably  my  Head- 
ings are  really  well  known  to  the  Essayist  or  Speaker, 
but  at  the  lime  he  cannot  recall  them,  and  so  he  omits 
them  altogether.  Now  with  a  General  List  like  mine 
he  could  not  possibly  omit  any  Heading  on  which  he 
could  really  say  something  of  importance. 

4.  And  this  is  not  all :  not  only  are  there  fewer 
Omissions,  but  a  great  deal  of  iitne  is  saved  which 
would  otherwise  have  been  spent  in  searching  for 
Headings,  as  if  one  were  trying  to  collect  pigs  in 
clover. 

5.  As  we  have  seen  on  p.  44,  Essays  and  Speeches 
often  suffer  from  bad  Arraiigeineiit  of  their  Ideas. 
Now  if  the  General  List  contains  the  Ideas  in  a 
fairly  good  order  (as  it  should  do),  then  the  trouble  in 
Arranging  these  Ideas  may  be  nearly  saved.  Of  course 
each  Composition  will  demand  a  certain  amount  of 
re-arrangement ;  but  still  the  same  Arrangement  may 
be  suitable  for  a  great  number  of  Compositions,  7ip  to 
a  certain  point.  In  fact,  the  W^riter  or  Speaker  will 
start  at  a  very  great  advantage.  Already  he  has  a 
number  of  pigeon-holes,  with  labels  all  arranged  in 
a  fairly  good  order.  What  he  has  to  do  now,  in 
Collecting  his  Ideas,  is  to  put  into  each  pigeon-hole 
that  which  he  knows  about  the  particular  topic.  After- 
wards he  may  have  to  re- arrange ;    but  not   nearly  to 


76  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,  ETC. 

the  same  extent  as  if  his   Ideas  had   been   Collected 
'  higgledy-piggledy '. 

6.  If  you  have  the  General  List  //  is  wonderfully 
easy  to  reject  that  ivhich  is  not  wanted.  A  man  who 
goes  into  a  shop  like  Whiteley's  should  not  object  and 
say  "  There  are  too  many  things  here  ;  I  don't  want 
them  all ".  He  should  choose  just  what  he  does  want. 
He  may  have  to  see  a  number  of  things  which  he  does 
not  want,  but  the  time  wasted  in  this  way  is  quite  small. 
Anyhow  he  is  ver\-  unlikely  to  omit  an)'thing  of  im- 
portance. 

7,  Nowadays,  also,  there  is  an  additional  advantage. 
We  are  beginning  to  regard  subjects  from  many  more 
different  points  of  view.  If  you  read  an  'up-to-date' 
Newspaper  (like  the  "  Daily  Mail "),  and  compare  it 
with  the  History  of  Greece  by  ancient  or  even  modern 
Historians,  you  will  at  first  be  inclined  to  think  that  there 
are  many  more  interests  in  the  ivorld  and  many  more 
departments  of  life  than  there  have  ever  been  before. 
But  this  is  only  half  the  truth.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
many  of  the  interests  have  been  there  all  along, 
only  Writers  and  Speakers  have  not  noticed  them.  A 
great  deal  is  included  now  which  was  once  thought 
unimportant.  The  lower  Classes,  for  instance,  receive 
their  share  of  attention,  and  health  and  sanitary  ar- 
rangements are  another  topic  which  would  not  have 
been  considered  in  ancient  times.  Hence  the  modern 
Essayist  or  Speaker  has  to  include  a  great  number  of 
Headings  which  the  ancient  Essayist  or  Speaker  would 
never  have  troubled  about.  The  modern  world  sees  that 
the  things  which  are  mentioned  are  really  important. 
There  is  a  great  deal  to  be  discussed  besides  War, 
Religion,  Government,  and  the  gossip  of  the  Court. 


GENERAL   LISTS   OF  /fEADLYGS  77 

It  is  not  meant  that  all  Headings  which  you  discuss 
are  of  equal  importance  :  but  it  is  meant  that,  if  you 
go  on  in  a  haphazard  method  and  put  down  just  what 
comes  into  your  head,  you  are  as  likely  as  not  to  leave 
out  some  Heading  which  really  may  be  twice  as 
important  as  what  you  have  [uit  in.  Every  day  it 
becomes  more  and  more  unscientific  to  omit ;  and  what 
may  be  unimportant  now  may  in  future  years  come  to 
have  its  importance  brought  prominently  forward. 

To  prove  this,  let  anyone  take  "Whitaker's  Almanack  " 
and  pick  out  from  the  last  two  years  the  events,  let  us 
say  ten  of  them,  which  he  thinks  will  be  most  important 
twenty  years  hence.  Ver}'  likely  only  three  of  his 
events  will  be  remembered  then  ;  as  to  the  other  seven, 
posterity  may  pass  over  them  as  being  trivial. 

8.  There  is  yet  another  reason  for  General  Lists  being 
valuable ;  and  that  is  that  they  encourage  Fairness. 
On  p.  150  foil,  we  shall  see  that  Fallacies  arc  mostly 
due  to  some  kind  of  Omission.  And  what  looks  very 
like  dishonesty  and  unfairness  may  in  reality  be 
ignorance  or  forgetfulness.  Now  the  chance  of  such 
Omissions,  and  therefore  the  chance  of  such  Fallacies, 
is  minimised  if  the  General  Lists  be  used. 

9.  These  Lists  also  save  a  great  deal  of  trouble  in 
learning*  as  the  following  example  will  show^  Suppos- 
ing we  have  learnt  once  for  all  the  advantages  of  the 
supreme  rule  of  one  man,  for  instance,  of  Augustus 
at  Rome,  and  supposing  we  have  made  a  General  List 
of  those  advantages,  and  have  learnt  this  List,  then, 
when  we  come  later  on  to  deal  with  any  other  good 
ruler  like    Pericles  at   Athens,  or   Peter  the   Great   in 

*  In  this  ihey  might  he  compared  with  Mathematical  Formulas,  e.g.  for 
Arithmetical  Progres.sion. 


78  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

Russia,  or  the  German  Emperor  to-day,  we  should  have 
a  certain  amount  of  our  Ideas  ah-eady  found  for  us  : 
we  should  have  a  number  of  things  which  the  particu- 
lar ruler  might  have  done,  and  we  shall  just  have  to  ask 
ourselves,  "  Did  he  actually  do  so-and-so  ?  "  Of  course 
the  difficulty  is  to  choose  as  our  starting-point  that 
instance  which  is  as  near  as  possible  to  a  complete  List. 
If  we  needed  a  complete  list  of  virtues,  we  should  have 
no  difficulty  in  our  choice  of  an  instance. 

As  contrasted  with  this,  I  notice  many  Books  (of 
recent  date)  which  give  Outlines  of  Essays.  They 
give  Headings  for  hundreds  of  separate  Essays,  but 
no  General  Headings  for  a  feiv  Types  of  Essays.  You 
find  a  Skeleton-Essay  on  '  Democracy ' :  well  and  good. 
But  the  Skeleton-Essay  on  'Aristocracy'  (or  'The  House 
of  Lords')  is  given  as  something  quite  distinct.  There  is 
no  attempt  to  say — 'The  Headings  A,  B,  C,  D,  E  .  .  .,  viz. 
Causes,  Hindrances,  Comparisons,  etc.,  are  common  to 
both  these  Essays,  and  in  fact  to  a  whole  chxss  of  Essays, 
including  even  (see  p.  96)  Essays  on  Individuals'. 

But,  to  return  to  what  we  said  before,  the  chief 
advantage  of  a  General  List  is  tliat  it  almost  does 
away  with  the  chance  of  Omission.  There  are  many 
people  who  do  not  speak  until  they  are  spoken  to, 
or  even  until  they  are  asked  a  question,  and  then  they 
suddenly  seem  to  blossom  out.  I  remember  one  case 
of  a  man,  whom  I  had  never  heard  discussing  cricket : 
when  I  asked  him  questions,  however,  I  found  that  he 
knew  nearly  all  the  general  results  and  important 
details  of  the  leading  matches  of  the  last  few  years. 
And  there  are  many  people  who  are  just  the  same 
in  Essay-writing  or  Speaking.  They  need  'drawing 
out,'  and  these  Lists  will  help  to  draw  them  out. 


CHAPl'IiR    XV.     HEADINGS  FOR   AN  ESSAY,  ETC., 
ON  A  PERIOD  :    V/ITH  A  RHYME. 


When  a  Period  is  to  be  re\'ie\ved,  when  two  Periods 
are  to  be  compared,  and  in  many  other  kinds  of  Essays 
(such  as  the  Influences  of  Geography,  the  Sphere  of 
Government,  the  Results  of  War,  the  Causes  of  Success), 
it  is  absolutely  essential  to  have  a  more  or  less  complete 
List  of  Headings. 

I  observe  that  many  excellent  Schemes  or  Skeletons 
of  Essays  have  been  published  lately :  but  they  are  all 
for  individual  Essa}-s  (e.g.  a  Scheme  for  an  Essay  on 
'The  Age  of  Louis  XIV.').  There  is  little  or  no 
attempt  to  give  a  General  List  of  Pleadings  applicable 
to  a?i)'  and  every  Period  :  cp.  p.  78. 

The  value  of  such  a  List  cannot  be  estimated  except 
by  contrast.  Try  to  review  the  Age  of  Louis  XIV.,  or 
any  Age,  wiihoiii  such  a  List,  and  see  how  many 
Headings  you  can  get.  Probably  there  will  not  be 
more  than  three-quarters  of  those  which  are  given 
here.  You  will  ha\'e  omitted  many ;  and  these  will 
not  necessarily  be  the  unimportant  Headings.  You 
will  have  omitted  several  which,  when  once  you  are 
reminded  of  them,  you  will  at  once  agree  to  be  very 
important  indeed :  to  prove  what  I  say,  make  the 
experiment. 


So  IDEAS:    HOJV   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

Now  probably  (unless  you  remember  the  previous 
Chapter)  }'OU  will  not  have  mentioned  the  Evidences, 
a  review  of  every  Class,  the  Period  Before,  the  Period 
After,  and  so  on. 

If,  however,  you  had  had  the  List  in  front  of  you, 
you  would  have  omitted  no  Heading  of  any  great 
importance.  Ail  your  kiunvledge  on  the  subject  zuojcid 
have  been  drazvn  out. 

In  the  following  List  (for  the  many  uses  of  which 
see  p.  133)  notice  the  opposites  or  Contrasts  [in  square 
13rackets].     For  the  List  as  a  Rhyme,  see  p.  83. 

Headings  for  a  Period,  etc. 

[Interest  of  the  Subject :  see  p.  255. j 

Evidences. 

Authorities  (and  Faults)    139 

points  of  view  (Bias,  etc.) 140 

other  Evidences 145 

Fallacies  150 

Geography  (and  Geology) 107 

Public  Works 108 

People 

of  every  Class no 

Communication  and  intercourse  [orwant  of  it]  1 1 1 

Unions,  large  or  small  [or  disunion]    iii 

State-Government    [or    Local,    or    Family,    etc.. 

Government,  or  Independence,  or  Anarchy]  113 

Order  [or  disorder] 1 15 

Justice  and  Law  [or  injustice  and  oppression]    ...  115 

Rights 1 16 

Virtues  [or  Vices]  99 

Religion  [or  Scepticism,  etc.]    116 


HEADINGS  FOR  AN  ESSAY  ON  A   PERIOD     8r 

Aims  and  thouL,dits    1 02 

Customs  119 

Capacities  [or  weak  [joints]   98 

Education  [or  the  want  of  it]    117 

Language     118 

Literature    131 

Philosophy  119 

Sciences,  Arts,  Inventions     119 

Social  Life  and  manners,  and  Home-life     119 

women 

dress 

Health  [or  illness]  120 

Ocaipations  [or  idleness] ;  e.g. 

commerce     120 

industries 

professions 

trades 
\\'ealth  [or  poverty]   122 

I'inance  and  taxation     122 

Other  Peoples,  connected  in  various  ways,  e.g. 

subjects    123 

colonies 

allies  and  friends 

visitors 

traders 

enemies 
War  [or  Peace  or  diplomacy  or  compromise]     ...   124 

Army    125 

Navy    125 

Previous  Period  126 

Subsequent  Period 125 

Changes  in  the  Period  itself  [or  stagnation]  127 

stage  of  Progress    127 

G 


82  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

Leading  men  and  women 128 

Parallels  and  Comparisons    279,  28 1 

Contrasts 29 1 

Objections  and  Exceptions 

Most  of  the  above  Headings  may  (see  p.  362  foil.) 
become  little  Essays  in  themselves,  and  have  Sub- 
Headings  of  their  own.  Some  of  these  Sub-Headings 
may  in  their  turn  become  little  Essays  and  have 
Sub-sub- Headings  of  their  own. 


HEADINGS  FOR  AN  ESS  A  Y  ON  A    PERIOD     83 


I  give  the  List  here  in  the  form  of  a  Rhyme  : 
for  the  best  way  of  learning  such  Rhjmes,  see  p.  88. 

Give  Evidences,  points  of  view,  and  Fallacies  (alas  ! ) ; 
Geography,  and  Public  Works;  the  folk,  of  every  Class, 
the  Intercourse,  the  Individual,  Unions  (large  or  small), 
State-Government,    and    Order,   Justice,    Rights;    and 

Virtues  all  ; 
Religion,  aims,  thoughts,  customs,  powers,  and   Educa- 
tion's parts  ; 
Language  and  Letters,  Wisdom  ;  then  the  Sciences,  and 

Arts, 
and     Inventions;    social     life,    home-life,    and    women, 

dress,  and  Health, 
Occupations  (commerce,  industries,  professions,  trades); 

and  Wealth  ; 
Finance;  then  Other  Peoples  in  some  way  connected  tell 
(subjects,  allies,  and  colonies,  and  enemies  as  well) 
b}'  marriage,    intercourse,   and    trade,   and    travel,  and 

by  War  ; 
View  th'  Army,  Navy  ;  then  the  Ages  After  and  Before, 
Changes  within  the  Age  itself,  and  stage  of  Progress 

state ; 
Chief  People  ;  give  Quotations  ;  lastly  recapitulate. 
Many  Headings  have  their  Contrasts,  and  Comparisons  : 

thus  Rome 
had   Wealth,   but  also  poorer   folk,  and   so  have  we  at 

home. 

For  Rhymes  giving  some  of  the  Sub-Headings  of 
these  Main  Headings,  see  p.  139,  etc. 


CIIAPTRR    XVI.     VARIOUS  USES  FOR  THE 
PERIOD-HEADINGS. 


For  the  use  and  value  of  all  General  Lists,  I  refer  to 
p.  73  foil.  Here  I  wish  to  point  out  once  more  (see 
p.  79)  the  value  of  these  Headings,  which  I  call  Period- 
Headings,  and  which  are  collected  in  a  Rhyme  on  p.  83 ; 
that  is  to  say,  such  Headings  as  Government,  Religion, 
Education,  Commerce,  War. 

1.  To  begin  with,  we  may  use  them  when  we  have 
to  describe  the  Period  of  some  great  man,  of  some 
great  event,  or  of  a  certain  year  or  number  of  years. 

2.  Of  course,  if  two  Periods  are  to  be  Compared  or 
Contrasted,  the  Headings  will  be  equally  to  the  point. 

But  they  cover  a  far  wider  ground  than  this. 

3.  If  we  have  to  give  the  Results  of  some  Influence, 
let  us  say  of  Geography,  Religion,  Slavery,  Naval 
Power,  War,  Monarchy  (Democracy,  etc.),  Commerce, 
Industries,  Wealth,  Colonisation,  Inventions,  Literature, 
etc.,  or  the  effects  of  certain  Individuals,  we  shall  need 
to  have  before  us  a  wide  field :  we  shall  need  to  survey 
the  whole  of  life,  as  it  were,  and  to  ask,  '  Was  such-and- 
such  a  sphere  affected,  e.g.  the  position  of  women,  the 
morals  of  the  People,  and  so  on?'  Here  the  Period- 
Headings  will  again  be  needed. 

4.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  to  give 

(rt)  the  Causes  and  Helps  (and  perhaps  the  Means),  or 
{b)  the  Hindrances  and  Obstacles  to  the   Influences 
of  Geography,  Religion,  etc.,  then  again   the    Period- 
Headings  must  be  utilised. 

84 


USES  FOR    THE   PERIOD-HEADINGS  85 

For  example,  what  were  the  Causes  of  Rome's 
Success,  Rome's  Faiku-e,  etc.,  or  what  were  the  signs 
and  Characteristics  of  that  Failure?  Here,  unless  we 
have  a  lung  List  of  such  Headings  before  us,  we  may 
easily  pass  over  some  Cause  or  some  Obstacle  of  great 
moment,  e.g.  Gcograph}-. 

The  Causes  of  Unity  (the  Bonds  of  Union) 
e.g.  between  England  and  America,  or  England  and 
Australia,  might  also  be  included  here. 

5.  What  is  the  proper  Sphere  of  Government?  How 
far  should  Government  '  interfere '  ?  Here  w^e  need  to 
know  how  far  Government  has  interfered  or  can  inter- 
fere :  we  need  to  review  the  various  departments  of 
life.     In  other  words,  we  need  the  Period-Headings. 

6.  In  Essays  on  Persons  (see  p.  96  foil.)  we  have  to 
consider  what  helped  or  hindered  the  Persons  in  their 
development ;  and  of  course  many  things  might  have 
contributed.  We  have  to  review  their  surroundings, 
their  '  Environment'.  We  need  the  Period-Headings  in 
case  we  should  omit  any  important  influence,  such  as 
Geography. 

And  this  applies  equally  when  we  have  to  consider 
the  Effects  wh.ich  these  Persons  had  upon  their  surround- 
ings and  upon  later  Periods. 

7.  Proverbs  are  often  set  for  Essays,  and  so  are  Quota- 
tions of  a  general  character,  such  as  '  Where  ignorance 
is  bliss,  'tis  folly  to  be  wise ',  or  '  No  single  man  ever 
yet  altered  the  character  of  a  Nation  for  any  length 
of  time.'  Here,  once  more,  we  need  Instances  from 
every  possible  source :  we  need  not  only  to  review- 
past  and  present  'History',  but  also  to  review  its 
various  departments,  such  as  Religion.  Otherwise 
we    ma}'    be    leaving    out    just    those    ver}'    Instances 


86  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,  ETC, 

which  wc  reall}'  know  best  and  which  would  be  most 
telHng-. 

8.  Even  now  I  have  not  exhausted  the  uses  to  which 
the  Period-Headings  may  be  put.  They  will  be  wanted 
also  when  we  have  to  consider  the  Evidences  for  various 
statements.  For,  as  we  shall  see  on  p.  145,  in  many 
subjects  Geography,  Religion,  Language,  etc.,  may  all 
be  valuable  Evidences,  besides  (see  p.  149)  affording 
valuable  Suggestions. 

9.  If  we  wish  to  be  able  to  take  a  fair,  that  is  to  say 
a  coniprcJiCHsive  vieiv  of  many  questions  great  or  small, 
we  may  well  set  these  Period-Headings  before  us  before 
we  venture  to  form  our  opinion  and  to  tell  it  to  others. 
\Vc  may  think  that  a  certain  Political  Party  is  right 
in  a  certain  line  of  action  until  we  have  examined  that 
line  of  action  in  the  light  of,  e.g.  Geography,  Morality, 
Education,  Commerce,  the  Subsequent  Periods,  and  so 
on.  Until  this  light  has  been  thrown  on  the  subject 
we  may,  for  all  we  know,  be  seeing  only  one  side  of  the 
subject. 


CHAPTER  XVII.     HOW   TO   LEARN   LISTS 
OF    HEADINGS. 


A.    How  TO  Lfarn  Headincs. 

For  general  advice  as  to  How  to  Learn  and  "  How  to 
Remember",  I  must  refer  to  a  book  on  the  subject, 
published  by  Messrs.  Warne  &  Co.  I  should  suggest 
the  following  helps  here. 

1.  First  of  all  tr)-  to  7c'ori-  out  the  Headings  for  your- 
self, using  common  sense,  Comparisons,  Contrasts,  etc. 
Then  correct  and  add  after  an  interval,  and  refer  to  the 
General  Lists  in  Chapters  XV.,  etc.  Observe  where 
you  have  omitted  anything,  and  make  notes  of  these 
weak  points,  and  pay  extra  attention  to  these  omitted 
Headings. 

2.  Then  write  out  the  full  List  from  memory,  and 
afterwards  look  again  at  the  List  and  make  additions 
and  corrections. 

3.  With  the  List  in  front  of  you,  apply  it  to  various 
subjects.  For  instance,  apply  the  List  of  Headings  for 
an  Essay  on  a  Person  (p.  94),  to  yourself  or  to  anyone 
else  that  you  know.  You  will  find  that,  when  you  have 
used  the  Plan  or  Scheme  a  good  many  times,  you  will 
be  able  to  do  an  Essay  on  another  person  without 
a  Plan  in  front  of  you  at  all.  In  fact,  the  more 
Instances  you  get  for  each  Heading,  and  the  more 
}-ou  make  certain  of  a  few  Instances  for  each,  to  start 
with,  the  more  indelibly  the  Headings  themselves  will 
become  impressed  upon  )-our  mind. 

S7 


88  IDEAS:    IIOIV  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

4.  It  is  as  well  to  try  to  reproduce  the  Lists  of 
Headings  at  odd  moments,  for  instance,  in  the  train. 

5.  For  one  List  (see  p.  108)  I  have  suggested  the 
system  of  learning  by  Liitials  :  this  I  have  found  most 
useful  in  my  own  work.  That  is  to  say,  one  arranges 
the  Headings  in  such  an  order  that  their  hniials  form 
some  word  or  words,  only  it  is  always  necessary  to  get 
the  Headings  thoroughly  understood  and  grasped  before 
one  attempts  this  '  Initializing  '.  See,  further,  "  How  to 
Remember  ". 

6.  For  some  people.  Rhymes  will  be  the  best  means, 
but  they  also  (see  below)  should  not  be  allowed  until  the 
Headings  have  been  thoroughly  understood  and  fre- 
quently practised  :  then  and  not  till  then  will  the 
Rhymes  be  valuable.  For  a  few  Rhymes,  to  which 
the  Reader  can  easily  add  many  others,  see  pp.  36,  62, 
83,  92,  etc.  As  to  the  ways  of  learning  Rhymes,  I 
shall  now  proceed  to  offer  a  few  sugger-ticms. 

B.  How  TO  Learn  Rhymes. 

There  is  a  rooted  objection,  in  the  minds  of  many,  to 
the  U5ie  of  Rhymes  as  a  means  of  fixing  Ideas  in  the 
memory,  and  this  too  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  people  are 
wont  to  remember  the  number  of  days  in  the  various 
months,  and  many  other  things  as  well,*  by  means  of 
Rhymes.  The  objectors  say  that  Rhymes  are  never  to 
be  used  as  a  help  to  the  memor}-. 

Of  course  this  is  going  ever  so  much  too  far,  but  it 
has  some  reason  ;  it  is  a  very  great  mistake  to  learn 
Rhymes  as  most  people  learn  them,  that  is  to  say  by  mere 
sounds,  and  as  the  parrot  or  the  Phonograph  learns 
Rhymes.       The     parrot    or    the    Phonograph    repeats 

*  See  "  How  to  Remember"  (published  by  Warnc  &  Co.). 


no IV   TO  LEARN  LISTS   OF  I/EADLXGS         89 

Rh>-mcs  absolutely  correctly,  but  even  the  parrot  seldom 
understands  a  word  or  an  Idea.  And  this  is  how 
most  boys  and  girls  learn  Poetry  and  other  Rh\-mes 
at  School.  This  way  of  learning  is  generally  rather 
worse  than  useless.  Not  only  does  it  take  a  long 
time  for  most  people  to  learn  Rhymes  thus,  but  for 
most  people  the  Rhymes  even  when  learnt  do  not 
stay  in  the  memor}^  and  even  if  they  do  they  are 
scarcely  ready  for  use. 

The  real  way  of  learning  a  Rhyme,  if  good  is  to  be 
got  out  of  it,  and  if  the  Rh}-me  is  worth  learning,  is 
to  read  the  zuords  slowly  as  if  they  were  not  a  Rhyme  at 
all,  that  is  to  say,  to  read  them  thinking  only  of  the  sense, 
and  making  no  attempt  whatever  to  learn  the  words  as 
words  or  as  sounds.  It  is  best  to  say  the  words  out 
loud  and  yet  to  think  of  the  sense,  and  not  to  pass  by 
any  sentence  until  it  has  been  understood. 

When  the  words  do  not  convey  a  clear  meaning,  then 
)-oa  must  stop  and  think  what  they  do  mean.  You 
might  think  of  some  actual  instance  (see  p.  160):  for 
example  you  might  apply  the  idea  to  some  particular 
example,  or  else  work  out  the  Contrast,  which  (sec 
p.  291)  will  often  throw  light  on  the  meaning. 

When  you  have  read  through  the  whole  Rhyme  \er)- 
slowly,  making  sure  that  }-ou  understand  the  general 
sense  of  the  whole  of  it,  as  well  as  the  special  sense 
and  the  connexion  of  the  various  parts,  then  put  it 
aside  for  a  time,  and,  after  an  interval,  read  it  through 
again,  not  troubling  to  learn  it  but  simply  realising 
it.  Do  this  over  and  over  again  at  intervals,  at  first 
very  slowly  and  with  concentrated  attention,  and  (for 
it  cannot  be  repeated  too  often)  with  thorough  under- 
standing. 


90  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

For  the  very  important  Rcsunice-method,  see  p.  354. 

After  this  has  been  done  perhaps  ten  times,  p(;rhaps 
fifteen,  not  only  will  the  Ideas  and  the  sense  be  fixed 
in  \-our  mind  as  a  valuable  possession,  but  (curious  as 
it  may  seem)  the  sounds  will  have  been  fixed  in  your 
mind  as  well.  Without  having  made  the  slightest 
effort  to  learn  the  sounds,  you  will  have  learnt  them 
merely  by  saying  them  out  loud.  Somewhat  similarly, 
by  hearing  a  tune  often,  you  come  to  know  it  and  to  be 
able  to  reproduce  it,  without  ever  having  consciously 
intended  to  know  it.  You  take  it  into  your  brain  willy 
nilly. 

Before  beginning  a  fresh  Rhyme,  go  over  the  old 
Rhyme  once  more,  that  is  to  '~>-A.y,  make  sure  of  the  ground 
zi'/iieh  you  have  already  mastered,  before  you  try  to  master 
fresh  ground.  The  early  Romans  were  very  careful  to 
make  their  conquests  their  very  ow^n,  and  to  secure  them 
thoroughly,  before  they  proceeded  to  fresh  struggles  and 
fresh  conquests. 


CHAPTER  XVIII.  GENERAL  HEADINGS  FOR 
SPECIAL  SUBJECTS  (e.g. 
COLONISATION,  OR  WAR): 
WITH  A  RHYME. 


Most  learners  who  are  told  to  write  an  Essay  on 
'Monarchy',  or  'Slavery',  or  'Naval  Power',  etc., 
have  no  notion  as  to  how  they  ought  to  treat  the 
subject.  It  is  so  vague.  The  following  Headings 
will  form   a  List  from  which  they  may  select. 

Let  the  reader  apply  these  Headings  to  a  subject 
like  '  Government ',  or  '  Religion  '.  But  let  him  first  try 
to  collect  the  Headings  for  an  Essay  on  these  two 
Subjects,  tinthoiit  looking  at  the  List.  Then  let  him 
see  the  List  applied,  e.g.  on  p.  96. 

****** 

Here,  as  before,  we  have 
[The  Interest  of  the  subject] 
Evidetices 

Authorities 

their  failings    140 

Different  points  of  view  (Bias) 141 

Other  Evidences     145 

Fallacies  150 

To  these  we  now  add  : — 

Instances,  including  Extreme  Instances  160 

Causes  and  helps 

Hindrances 

91 


92  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,  ETC. 

Description 
parts 

their  connexions 
extent  and  sphere 
in  time 
in  place 
changes 

[different  points  of  view,  fallacies,  etc.:  see  above] 
appearance  [esp.  as  opposed  to  reality] 
Aims  and  hopes 
Effects 

immediate  or  ultimate 
good  or  bad 
Parallels,  and  Ccnnparisons 
Contrasts 

This  is  a  rough-and-ready  List,  merely  for  the 
Collection  of  Ideas.  In  the  Essay  itself  of  course  the 
Instances  and  Examples  would  seldom  come  all  in  a 
lump  at  the  beginning. 

Sub-Headings,  and  Headings  for  many  Essays, 
in  Rhyme. 

[View  Evidences,  Bias,  and  chief  Fallacies  expose.] 

'Neath  the  Main  Headings  Instances,  then  Helps  and 
Causes  range, 

and  Hindrance;  next  Description  (parts  and  ties,  ex- 
tent, and  change, 

the  standards  and  the  points  of  view,  appearance,  aims 
and  hopes) ; 

th'  Effects;  Quotations,  Contrasts,  and  Comparisons,- 
and  Tropes. 


CHAPTER   XIX.     HEADINGS  FOR  AN  ESSAY,  ETC., 
ON  A  PERSON. 


The  above  Headings  can  be  applied  to  a  Person  also: 
but  the  Headings  for  an  Essay  on  a  Person  (e.g.  Pericles, 
Cato,  Watt,  etc.)  should  be  tried  before  the  next  page 
is  read. 


Persons  are  mostly  chosen  for  some  notable  feature 
or  features  :  they  are  usually  Generals,  or  Politicians, 
or  Scientific  men,  or  Philanthropists,  etc.  P'or  Authors, 
see  p.  129.  But,  though  they  may  differ  in  their  peculiar 
line  of  work,  they  must  all  be  treated  alike  to  a  certain 
extent. 

The  Rh}-me  (p.  92)  was  : — 

[View  Evidences,  Bias,  and  chief  Fallacies  expose.] 


'Neath  the  Main   Headings  Instances,  then   Helps  and 

Causes  range, 
and  Hindrance;  next  Description  {parts  and  ties,  extent, 

and  cJiange, 
llie  standards  and  the  points  of  view,  appearance,  aims 

and  hopes); 
th'  Effects ;  Quotations,  Contrasts,  and  Comparisons,  and 

Tropes. 

93 


94  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

This  will  give  us  : — 
Evidences 

Authorities 

Bias 141 

Faults  and  failings 140 

Other  Evidences 145 

Fallacies 150 

Instances 

here  the  Events  of  the  life    96 

Helps  and  Causes 

heredity    96 

environment    96 

Hindrances 

do. 
Description  and  Individuality 

parts,  and  their  connexion     97 

bodily  or  physical  98 

intellectual  98 

moral  (virtues)      99 

extent,  esp.  of  work 100 

changes  during  the  life,  and  tcjidencics  of  the 

life    100 

standards  of  judgment 

different  points  of  view     loi 

appearance  (as  opposed  to  reality)  102 

aims  and  hopes  102 

especially  as  opposed  to 
Effects 

immediate  and  later  104 

Parallels  and  Comparisons    104 

Contrasts 104 


CHAPTER    XX.     SUB-HEADINGS. 


It  might  be  as  well  that,  at  some  time  or  other,  each 
Main-Heading  should  be  treated  as  a  separate  Essay. 
A  good  many  have  been  roughly  outlined  in  this  Book 
(pp.  96  to  132) :  the  reader  should  try  them  all  for  him- 
self before  he  reads  these  pages. 

In  an  Essay  on  a  Period,  etc.  (see  p.  83),  many  of 
these  Main-Headings  will  have  to  be  treated  as  separate 
Essays,  that  is  to  sa}-  under  many  Headings  there  will 
be  SUlMIEADlxciS,  which,  if  you  have  time,  you  will 
likewise  not  onl}^  Collect,  but  also  Select,  Underline, 
and  Arrange. 

It  is  almost  essential  for  you  to  work  out  these  Sub- 
Headings  (i.e.  Headings  under  each  Main- Heading) 
before  j'ou  can  judge  which  Main-Headings  are  more 
important  and  which  are  less  important,  and  therefore 
before  you  can  Underline  and  Arrange  the  Main- 
Headings  themselves.  It  is  as  if  you  had  a  number 
of  parcels,  each  of  which  you  wished  to  put  in  the 
best  and  most  convenient  place  for  certain  purpo.ses. 
Before  you  could  fix  on  the  places  of  these  parcels, 
you  would  ha\e  to  examine  their  contents. 

The  most  useful  List  of  Sub-Headings  (e.g.  Instances, 
Causes,  Effects)  will  be  found  on  p.  92.  This  List  must 
assured!}-  be  mastered,  and  on  p.  87  are  given  sugges- 
tions as  to  Jioiv  it  should  be  niastered. 


95 


CHArTF.R    XXI.     SUB-HEADINGS   FOR   AN 

ESSAY,  ETC.,  ON  A  PERSON. 


Some  of  the  above  Headings,  for  an  Essay  on  a  Person, 
may  now  be  considered  one  by  one  and  in  more  detail. 
The  reader  should  first  take  the  Headings,  and  should 
jot  down  Sub- Headings  under  each.  My  List  is  very 
scanty,  and  only  suggests  a  few  ideas  out  of  hundreds  ; 
his  List  should  be  much  fuller  than  mine. 

Listances :  the  Events  of  the  Persons  life. 

These  should  be  divided  into  Epochs,  as  far  as 
possible.  Certain  crises  and  turning-points  will  pro- 
bably be  conspicuous. 

Helps  and  Causes : — 

(i)  Heredity  must  be  made  to  include  not  only  the 
father  and  mother,  but  also  the  ancestors  further  back. 
It  is  here  that  our  Evidence  for  judging  people  is  so 
very  meagre :  we  know  so  little  about  any  person's 
stock-in-trade  in  early  life,  that  we  should  be  very 
careful  in  passing  sentence.  And  yet  we  are  wont  to 
decide  in  a  moment. 

(ii)  Eitvironnient  is  the  second  cause  of  a  Person 
being  as  he  is,  the  first  being  Heredity,  and  the  third 
being  that  mysterious  something  which  we  may  call 
Individuality  (see  'Description'). 

Environment  must  include  the  places  where  the 
Person  lives,  the  Age  or  Period  (see  p.  79  foil.),  and, 
especially,  the  Groups  among  which  he  'lives  and  moves 

96 


sun- HEADINGS  FOR   ESSA  YS   ON  PERSONS    97 

and  has  his  being':  these  may  be  his  Family-group,  his 
School-group,  his  l'>iend-  and  Acquaintance-Group,  his 
Business-Group,  and  so  on. 

Hindrances  will  include  these  same  two  (or  rather 
three)  influences.  They  must  by  no  means  be  neglected, 
for  frequently  a  man's  Individuality  opposes  or  is 
opposed  by  his  parents,  or  his  conditions  of  life,  or 
both.  The  life  of  Jesus  is  an  excellent  study  in 
'Hindrances'  of  the  second  kind.* 

Description  and  Individuality. 

This  is  undoubtedly  not  only  the  most  important  part 
of  the  Essay  on  a  Person,  but  also  the  most  difficult 
part.  For  we  can  scarcely  describe  at  all  without 
criticising,  and,  as  we  have  just  seen,  Criticism  is  apt 
to  ignore  a  great  many  '  extenuating  circumstances ' 
or  the  re\erse,  a  great  many  disadvantages  overcome 
or  a  great  many  advantages  unused  or  misused. 

Man  may  be  considered  from  at  least  three  different 
points  of  view  :  in  any  one  sphere  he  is  liable  to  be 
regarded  as  'a  success'  or  as  'a  failure',  without  neces- 
sarily being  the  same  in  the  other  two.  He  may  be 
regarded  as  a  '  pliysical '  success,  e.g.  as  a  fine  football- 
player,  while  intellectually  and  morally  he  may  be  a 
grievous  failure.  Or  he  may  be  regarded  as  a  brilliant 
genius,  an  '  intellectual '  success,  while  he  is  physically 
unhealthy  and  morally  unhealthy  —  we  see  too  many 
instances  of  this  in  the  Literary  men  of  to-day.  Or  he 
may  be  regarded  as  "  an  unhealtiiy  smug  "  and  "  a  stupid 
ass  ",  and  )-ct  be  a  stupendous  '  moral '  success. 

The  three  spheres  or  parts  ma}-  therefore  be  considered 
separatel}',  to  some  extent,  though  the  connexion  between 
them  should  be  pointed  out  wherever  it  is  possible. 
*  See  also  "  Eaincsl  Men"'  (published  by  Nelson  and  Cu.). 
W 


98  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

As  to  the  body,  we  may  consider  such  Headings  as 
'  physique',  beauty,  etc. 
health  (see  p.  120) 
rapidity,   and   promptitude    (a    somewhat   different 

quality), 
endurance 
strength 

skill,   and    versatility    (also    a    somewhat    different 
qualit)-). 
And  wc  must  consider  the  different  ways  in  which 
the  body  can  be  used.     Philip  of  Macedon  is  well  worth 
a  study  in  this  respect,  and  so  is  Caesar. 

The  Intellect  can  also  be  employed  in  many  ways 
and  in  many  directions,  e.g.  in  Government,  Lav/, 
Literature,  Science,  Commerce,  War,  etc.  See  the 
Various  Headings  on  p.  "^t^. 

It  is  important  to  notice  some  of  the  same  Headings 
as  above,  e.g. 

an  eye  for  beauty  and  harmony,  etc. 
healthiness  [as  opposed  to  a  morbid  genius], 
rapidity, 

promptitude  and  readiness, 
endurance  (and  memory), 
strength,  and  energy, 
skill, 

versatility  [here  we  must  ask  whether  the  Person 
was  good  at  one  thing  or  at  many:  Alcibiadcs, 
Caesar,  and  Gladstone,  were  versatile], 
proportion  [as  opposed  to  giving   undue   import- 
ance to  some  things], 
sound  reasoning  and  inference,  and  "  openminded- 

ness  ", 
fairness  [which  is  also  a  moral  quality,  being  a  love 
of  truth]. 


Srn  HEADIXGS  FOR  ESS  A  YS  ON  PERSONS      99 

Ejijoynient  is  liard  to  class :  one  has  to  say  what  the 
Person  liked  and  disliked,  and  how  happy  or  unhappy 
he  was.  He  may  enjoy  bodily  or  mental  activity,  for 
example,  or  virtue  especially. 

The  Moral  qualities  or  Virtues  cannot  be  severed 
from  the  Intellectual  qualities.  Thus  the  love  of  truth 
and  the  fearless  search  for  truth  are  Moral  as  well  as 
Intellectual.  '  Openmindedness '  seems  to  me  to  be 
almost  as  much  a  Virtue  as  Purity. 

Again,  true  '  ph\'sical '  Health  seems  to  me  to  be  as 
great  a  Virtue  as  Charity.  I  do  not  of  course  mean 
mere  '  Muscle',  but  real  Health  which  enables  a  man 
to  work  hard  and  well.  It  is  seldom  mentioned  in  the 
list  of  Virtues,  however. 

It  is  not  always  remembered  that  the  Virtues  can 
be  and  should  be  seen  in  every  department  of  life. 
Demosthenes  and  Burke  and  Dymond  insisted  that  a 
Nation  has  a  Code  of  Virtue  (kindness,  forgiveness, 
honesty,  etc.)  as  strict  as  that  of  an  Individual.  There 
are  many  who  deny  this,  e.g.  for  Politics  and  '  Business'. 
Their  reasons  are  often  *  of  the  earth,  earthy  ' :  the)^  are 
even  muddy. 

Courage,  steadfastness  and  perseverance,  determination 
and  energy  [opp.  to  cowardice,  to  rashness,  to  weak- 
mindedness,  to  obstinacy,  and  to  slackness]. 

Truth,  truthfulness  and  Fairness,  readiness  to  learn 
[opp.  to  lying  and  deceit,  unfairness,  implicit 
obedience  to  Custom,  and  Bias]. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  life  of  Jesus  will  give 
the  best  collection  of  Virtues.  The  Vices  opposed  to 
the  Virtues  often  throw  light  on  the  nature  of  the 
Virtues,  and  some  will  be  given  in  square  brackets  below. 


loo  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

Each  Virtue  (see  p,  207)  is  a  mean  between  two 
extremes  (as  Aristotle  so  justly  said):  thus  Courage 
is  a  Virtue,  but  at  one  extreme  is  Foolhardy  Rashness, 
at  the  other  Selfish  Cowardice. 

A  List  of  some    Virtues. 

Kindness,  forgiveness,  charitableness,  kind  correction 
[opp.  to  unkindness,  malice,  vengeance,  and  also 
mild  acquiescence  in  evil,  and  over-clemency]. 
Self-sacrifice  [opp.  to  selfishness]. 
Sympathy  [opp.  to  want  of  sympathy,  and  narrow- 
ness]. 

Cheerfulness  and  hope  [opp.  to  gloomy  despair,  and 
also  to  excessive  hopefulness]. 
Optimism  [opp.  to  pessimism]. 

Purity  and  Healthiness  [opp.  to  impurity  and  morbid- 
ness, etc.]. 

Temperance  and    Self-control  [opp.  to   obedience   to 
the  '  lower  self']. 

Meekness  [opp.  to  pugnacity,  and  also  to  mere  selfish 
cowardice]. 

Extent  and  Sphere.  Here  we  may  consider  the 
'sphere  of  activity',  of  body,  intellect,  morality,  and 
enjoyment. 

Chajiges.  Any  of  the  '  parts '  of  a  Person  may 
change  during  his  lifetime,  e.g.  his  Intellect  or  his 
Morals.  A  man  must  not  be  considered  as  always 
a  consistent  actor,  though,  if  we  knew  all  the  Causes 
and  Conditions,  we  might  be  able  to  explain  the 
Changes.  The  Tendency  of  a  Person's  life  is  a  far 
more  important  question  than  his  actual  condition  or 
action  at  any  given  time. 


SUB-HEADINGS  FOR  ESSAYS  ON  PERSONS    loi 

Standards  of  Judgment. 

Often  a  very  great  mistake  is  made  here :  often  a 
Person  is  judged  by  one  Standard  only.  For  instance, 
Cato  may  be  judged 

(i)  simply  as  a  Roman  of  those  days,  i.e.  he  may 
be  com.pared  and  contrasted  with  other  Romans  of 
those  days ;   or 

(ii)  he  may  be  judged  by  the  standard  of  the  present 
Age,  or  of  the  writer's  Age.  One  writer  wondered 
how  Cato  could  have  regarded  slaves  as  mere  chattels. 
It  was  the  regular  way  of  regarding  slaves  theti. 

Or,  again, 

(iii)  the  Ideal  may  be  taken  as  the  Standard.  Of 
course  Cato,  like  most  of  the  ancients  (except  Epa- 
minondas  and  a  few  others),  fell  lamentably  short. 

Other  critics,  again,  change  their  Standard  without 
a  word  of  warning.  Now  they  are  considering  Cato 
as  an  old  Roman,  and  now  they  are  judging  him  as 
if  he  had  been  a  Nineteenth  Century  Englishman  ; 
this  is  even  more  misleading  than  to  keep  to  one 
single  Standard. 

13ut,  it  may  be  asked,  how  arc  we  to  judge  people? 
I  suggest  the  following  compromise,  and  it  seems  to 
combine  the  three  Standards,  and  to  be  the  fairest 
possible  test  for  every  individual  case. 

"A  certain  Person,  A,  had  such-and-such  parents 
and  ancestors,  and  lived  in  such-and-such  an  Age, 
and  under  such-and-such  Conditions  (p.  96).  P"or 
such  a  man,  under  such  conditions,  there  was  a  certain 
BEST  POSSIBLE.  How  near  did  A  come  to  this  '  Best 
Possible'?  What  were  his  Tendencies,  his  Effects, 
and  his  Aims?" 


I02  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,  ETC. 

The  Appearance  must  (as  far  as  possible)  be  dis- 
tinguished from  the  Reality.  Things  are  not  always 
what  they  seem. 

The  Aims  and  Motives  mid  Hopes  must  also  be 
considered  as  well  as  the  Effects :  failure  in  defending 
the  right  is  better  than  many  so-called  '  successes'. 

Aims  and  Motives. 

Of  the  Aims  of  W^riters,  we  have  spoken  above  (p.  48). 
Here  we  need  only  consider  the  Aims  and  Motives  that 
lead  most  people  to  do  what  they  do. 

As  we  saw  on  p.  48,  we  are  very  apt  to  forget  two 
points  when  we  are  asking  "  What  were  the  Motives  for 
this  action  ? "  We  are  apt  to  forget  that  the  Motives 
may  have  been  {a)  mixed,  and  that  {b)  they  may  have 
changed  even  while  the  action  was  going  on.  Alexander 
the  Great,  for  instance,  did  not  invade  the  East  and 
conquer  the  Persians  simply  for  the  sake  of  vengeance 
or  glory  :  he  had  other  aims,  such  as  to  get  money,  to 
unite  the  Greeks,  etc.  Having  known  Isocrates'  views, 
he  could  scarcely  have  failed  to  have  these  Motives  as 
well  as  the  others.  But,  when  he  had  finally  conquered 
Darius'  forces,  and  even  before  then,  as  he  had  to  secure 
Jiis  rear  by  garrisons  and  colonics  and  roads  etc.,  he 
may  have  wished  to  form  a  new  Nation,  a  mixture  of 
Greeks  and  Macedonians  and  Asiatics, 

The  following  List  deserves  a  careful  study.  It 
proceeds  from  the  lower  to  the  highest  Motives,  though 
the  highest  Motives  may  come  into  play  without  the 
lower  Motives  ceasing  :  the  higher  may  be  added  to 
the  lower.  Sometimes,  however,  the  lower  Motives 
practically  give  WAy  to  the  higher. 


SUB-HEADINGS  FOR  ESS  A  YS  ON  PERSONS    103 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  precisely  the  same 
action  may  often  be  the  result  either  of  a  purely  selfish 
aim,  or  of  a  purely  noble  aim,  or  of  a  mixture  of  the 
two,  or  first  of  one  and  then  of  the  other.  A  man,  for 
example,  may  abstain  from  Alcohol  simply  in  order  to 
save  his  own  health  or  even  his  life ;  then  he  may 
continue  to  abstain  not  only  for  this  reason  but  also 
in  order  that  he  may  do  better  work  ;  then  he  may 
wish  to  set  a  good  example  to  others  as  well,  and  to  help 
them  to  do  better  work.  Finally,  this  latter  Motive 
may  predominate. 

Chief  Motives : — 

1.  Slavish  obedience  to  Custom  and  Authority. 

2.  Desire  to  escape  or  avoid 

starvation, 

pain, 

poverty, 

discomfort, 

disgrace  and  unpopularity,  and  obscurit)-, 

vice, 

etc. 

3.  Desire  to  get  or  keep 

food, 

pleasure, 

wealth, 

comfort,  and  luxury, 

fame,  and  [)opularit}-, 

virtue, 

etc. 

So  far,  2  and  3  mean  only  to  escape  or  avoid,  to  get 
or  to  keep,  certain  things  ///  Ofie's  own  case. 
4  and  5  will  be  to  help  otJiers  to  do  the  same. 


104  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

As  to  these  '  others ',  they  may  be 

(i)  few, 

(ii)  many  (see  the  'Groups',  on  p.  112), 
(iii)  the  majc:»rity, 
(iv)  all  mankind, 
(v)  posterity  also. 

Notice  that  the  evils  or  blessings  may  affect 

{a)  the  body, 

{U)  the  intellect, 

ic)  the  morals  and  character, 

{d)  the  happiness  ; 

and  that  the}'  may  be  sought  not  only  for  their  own 
sake  but  for  the  sake  of  what  they  may  bring  with  them 
or  after  them. 

It  is  most  essential  to  stud}-  Motives  if  we  wish  to 
appeal  to  others  and  to  influence  them.  Jesus'  teaching 
shows  that  he  '  knew  what  was  in  man  '. 

A  good  Exercise  would  be  to  stud}-  the  '  actions '  of 
others,  as  well  as  of  oneself,  and  to  classify  the  Motives 
under  these  Headings,  making  special  allowance  for 
the  possibility  of  Mixed  Motives. 

The  immediate  Effects  are  never  the  full  Effects  (see 
p.  125).  Often  the  full  Effects  can  scarcely  be  summed 
up  for  years  or  generations  afterward.s,  even  in  so  far  as 
we  can  trace  them  for  ourselves.  And  of  course  we  can 
only  trace  a  part  of  them. 

Parallels,  Coviparisons,  and  Contrasts  may  serve  to 
emphasise  and  make  clear  the  prominent  points  (see 
Philip  and  Napoleon,  p.  281),  to  give  interest  to  the 
subject,  and  also  to  'show  off  information  which  you 
have  acquired. 


SUB-HEADINGS  FOR  ESSA  YS  ON  PERSONS     105 

Here,  if  anywhere,  the  advice  "  not  to  search  for 
Comparisons,  but  only  to  use  them  if  they  come 
naturally  into  your  mind"  is  singularly  out  of  place. 
In  fact,  a  careful  search  is  a  most  excellent  exercise 
and  may  produce  very  valuable  results.  The  chances 
are  that  a  Comparison  will  not  occur  at  all  'of  its  own 
accord'      See  further  p.  281  foil. 

If  the  Person  happened  to  be  a  General,  then  it 
would  be  necessary  to  know,  among  other  things,  the 
chief  characteristics  of  good  Generals:  later  on  (p.  129) 
we  shall  treat  of  Authors,  and  the  chief  characteristics 
of  good  Authors.  If  space  permitted,  we  should  touch 
on  the  chief  characteristics  of  great  Scientific  men. 
Statesmen,  etc.  But  here  we  must  be  content  to  say  a 
few  words  about  Generals. 

1.  A  good  General  keeps  Discipli)ie  in  his  forces,  and 
welds  the  forces  together  so  that  they  act  in  harmony. 
Personal  example  (such  as  a  simple  active  life)  ma\'  do 
much. 

2.  He  must  have  a  sound  knoivlcdge  of  Geography,  of 
mankind  in  general,  and  in  particular  of  his  own  troops 
and  officers,  and  the  enemy's  troops  and  officers.  He 
must  know  the  weak  and  strong  points  of  both  sidcSj 
the  resources,  etc. 

3.  He  must  be  original,  and  yet  must  seek  for  advice, 
and  take  it,  if  necessary. 

4.  His  plans  must  be  far-ycac/iiiig  and  not  plans  for 
the  immediate  future :  and,  if  necessarv",  he  must  be 
able  to  conceal  them.  He  must  see  to  the  safety  of 
himself  and  his  troops,  especially  in  case  of  defeat. 

5.  Versatility  is  a  fine  qualitx'  in  a  General  :  to  be 
able  now  to  act  with  lightning  rapiditx',  like  Alexander, 


io6  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,  ETC. 

and  now  to  wait  with  snail-like  patience,  like  Philip  or 
Fabius,  to  be  able  to  adapt  oneself  suddenly  to  new 
and  unexpected  conditions — this  is  essential. 

6.  Not  less  essential  is  careful  preparation  and  pro- 
vision of  food,  arms  and  ammunition,  communications, 
connexions  between  the  various  forces,  all  in  case  of 
either  victory  or  defeat. 

7.  Only  the  most  consummate  genius  and  instinct 
can  take  the  place  of  a  wide  personal  experience,  as  well 
as  a  wide  theoretical  study,  of  offensive  and  defensive 
war. 

8.  The  merits  or  faults  must  not  be  judged  by  the 
immediate  effects.  A  present  victory  may  bring  in  its 
train  a  later  defeat,  and  a  present  defeat  and  loss  of 
life  may  be  the  only  way  of  securing  ultimate  victory  or 
even  safety. 

It  is  needless  to  give  a  list  of  great  Generals :  from 
Epaminondas,  Philip,  and  Alexander,  Flamininus, 
Fabius,  and  Hannibal,  to  Nelson,  Napoleon,  Welling- 
ton, and  Kitchener  and  others  to-day,  the  list  is  full 
of  useful  illustrations. 


CI-LAPTER    XXII.      SUB-HEADINGS   FOR 

THE  PERIOD-HEADINGS. 


For  the  AiitJiorities,  Evidences,  Poitits  of  View,  Fallacies, 
and  otiicr  Evidences,  see  pp.  139,  145,  150. 

Geography  (includini^  Geology)  is  a  Heading  very 
frequently  neglected.  If  we  wished  to  estimate  its 
influences,  e.g.  on  Roman  History,  or  on  English  History, 
we  should  need  some  systematic  plan  of  Sub-Headings. 
The  reader  might  try  to  jot  down  these  Headings  for 
himself  before  looking  at  the  List  below. 

****** 

List  of  the  '  Divisions '  or  Parts  of  Geography  and 
Geology.  These  should  be  applied  to  a  country  like 
England,  if  they  are  to  be  properly  understood. 

*  Neighbours  \  in  the  widest  sense,  i.e.  Peoples  who 
are  near  enough  to  affect  the  history  of  the  People 
itself  Surrounding  influences  can  also  be  classed  here 
(e.g.  the  Gulf  Stream).  The  position  in  the  World  or 
Continent  etc.  "should  be  noted. 

Boundaries,  e.g.  Sea,  IMountains,  Rivers,  etc. 

Shape,  and  '  Direction  '. 

Size,  esp.  as  compared  with  other  Countries. 

Surface  and  Scenery. 

The  Surface  may  be  flat  or  rough  or  hill}-,  dry  or 
'  watery  '  ;  the  level  (above  the  sea)  is  also  important. 

In  looking  over  the  Country  from  a  balloon,  we 
should  also  be  struck  by  the  presence  or  absence  of 
towns  and  buildings. 

The  means  of  Communication,  e.g.  rivers,  would  also 
strike  one.     And  see  '  Public  Works',  below. 

Products,  in  the  widest  sen.se,  may  include  Vegetable, 
Animal,  and   Mineral   Products.     These  deserve  careful 

107 


loS  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COILECT,   ETC. 

study,  since  much  of  the  history  of  a  Country  depends 
on  its  Products. 

Under  '  Vegetable '  Products,  the  grains  and  fruits  are 
to  be  remembered,  and  also  the  Wood  (for  ships,  etc.). 

Of  Animals  we  need  not  give  a  List. 

Minerals  will  include  Stone  (a  product  of  enormous 
importance  for  buildings,  etc.)  as  well  as  Coal,  and  the 
Metals. 

The  Air  and  Clhnaic,  etc. 

The  Air  may  be  dry  or  damp,  clear  or  foggy,  hot 
or  warm  or  cool  or  cold. 

Here,  especially,  and  also  with  regard  to  the  Surface 
and  Scenery,  it  is  necessary  to  notice  whether  there  is 

Monotony  or  Variety  in  different  parts  of  the  Country, 
or  at  different  seasons  of  the  year. 

The  Absence  of  certain  features  is  also  suggestive. 
Very  often  we  have  to  contrast  our  Country  with 
another  before  we  can  realise  what  has  been  the 
result  of  our  Country  not  having  had  certain  features 
(e.g.  excessive  cold). 

The  above  Headings  are  well  worth  remembering. 
Their  initials  are  N.B.,  S.S.S.,  PAVA. 

Public  Works. 

In  England  to-day  the  Public  Works,  e.g.  the  roads 
and  buildings,  must  be  reckoned  as  part  of  our  '  Geo- 
graphy'. Though  the  work  of  man,  they  have  yet 
become  as  much  a  part  of  our  land  as  the  trees  are, 
and  (alas !)  even  more  so.  We  are  apt  to  look  upon 
our  Geography  as  fields  and  trees  and  rivers :  but, 
for  many  millions  of  us,  the  Geography  is  the  city 
with  its  streets  and  lights  and  buildings.  The  Public 
Works  cannot  be  treated  simply  as  Geography^however. 


SUn-flEADLYGS  FOR   PERIOD-HEADINGS       109 

The  followiiif^  List  will  apply  chiefly  to  early  ages. 
As  time  goes  on,  the  Public  Works  (such  as  Libraries, 
and  School-buildings)  become  more  and  more  numerous. 

Among  those  which  arc  connected  with  Watcr^  are  the 
following  : — 

canals,  reservoirs  (aciueducts,  etc.)  ; 

baths  ; 

bridges ; 

harbours  ; 

drainage  ; 

ships. 
For  War  and  Defence,  besides 

ships  of  war,  etc.,  we  have 

fortifications,  such  as  towers  and  walls  ; 

armour,  and  weapons. 
For  Coiiuniniication^  etc.,  besides 

canals,  etc.  (sec  above),  we  have 

streets  and  roads  ; 

railways  ; 

postal  arrangements  ; 

hghts. 
For  Healthy  etc.,  we  lia\-e,  besides 

drainage,  baths,  etc.  (see  above), 

parks  and  open  spaces  ; 

Gymnasiums,  etc., 

granaries. 
For  Education^  etc.,  we  have 

Schools  ; 

Libraries  ; 

Public  Statues  ; 

Museums,  Art-Exhibitions,  etc.  ; 

Concert- Halls,  Lecture-Rooms. 
Miscellaneous  works  would  be 

Monuments  ; 

Churches  ; 

Buildings    for    Meetings,    e.g.    Town-halls,    Houses    of 
Parhamcnt ; 

Prisons  ; 

Mines. 


no  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

The  People  of  Every  Class. 

Under  '  Fallacies  '  (p.  1 50)  we  see  how  apt  Writers  and 
others  are  to  judge  of  the  whole  by  some  one  or  more 
of  its  parts  (especially  if  these  parts  be  very  prominent), 
and  to  oi/ijt  the  other  parts  :  in  other  words,  to  ignore 
the  Law  of  x'\verages.  We  know  how  the  Egyptians,  for 
example,  were  classed  as  'highly  civilised  people',  because 
the  Few,  the  members  of  the  upper  Classes,  were  highly 
civilised.  If  we  take  the  average,  and  include  the  lower 
Classes,  the  labourers  and  slaves,  we  shall  probably 
change  our  opinion.  Those  who  laud  to  the  skies  the 
Civilisation  of  '  Greece '  are  apt  to  forget  that  many 
parts  of  Greece  (e.g.  Acarnania  and  Epirus)  were  quite 
uncivilised,  and  that  even  in  Athens  the  women  and 
slaves  would  bring  down  the  average  very  considerably. 
And  they  must  be  ijiciuded.  And  so  it  is  with  our  own 
country  :  those  who  are  puffed  up  with  national  pride, 
e.g.  at  our  huge  Navy  and  Commerce,  should  read 
Wallace's  "Wonderful  Century",  and  remember  that 
London  has  slums. 

The  Classes  most  coimiionly  neglected  are  Children, 
Wojiien,  Servants  and  Slaves,  and  Resident  Foreigners. 

A  complete  List  of  the  various  Classes  will  not  be 
attempted  here :  but  it  should  be  tried  by  the  reader. 
Some  of  the  'Occupations'  will  be  found  on  p.  120. 

The  following  points  generally  call  for  some  con- 
sideration :  they  should  be  applied  to  England  and  to 
other  Countries,  for  practice. 

(i)  The  Soiu'ces  of  the  population,  e.g.  immigration  ; 

(ii)  The  mivibers,  esp.  in  proportion  to  the  size  of  the 
country.     Emigration,  etc.,  may  come  in  here. 


SUn-IlEADINGS   FOR   rRRIOD-ITEADINGS       in 

(iii)  The  distribution,  in  towns,  suburbs,  villages,  open 
country,  on  the  sea,  and  abroad. 

(iv)  The  relative  size  and  importance  of  the  Classes  : 
the  importance  may  appear  in  Politics,  in  Society,  in 
War,  etc.     It  may  also  change  (see  p.  127  below). 

(v)  The  subdivisions  of  the  various  Classes,  the  Em- 
plo\'mcnts,  and  the  Cross-divisions,  are  to  be  noticed  ; 
and  also 

(vi)  The  relations  of  the  different  Classes,  whether 
it  be  friendly  help  and  co-operation,  or  opposition. 

Coinniii7iication ,  not  only  between  Classes,  but  also 
between  Individuals,  and  between  them  and  other 
Peoples,  is  to  be  noticed. 

Communication  may  of  course  be  by  river  or  canal 
or  lake  or  sea,  by  path  or  street  or  road  or  mountain 
pass,  by  railway,  and  so  on.  Needless  to  say,  free 
Communication  ma}'  do  much  to  unite  the  People  and 
to  open  their  minds. 

Unions,  and  the  Individual. 

As  civilisation  advances,  a  very  marked  feature  is 
that  (see  p.  135) 

(i)  on  the  one  hand  man)-  Unions  grow  larger  and 
larger ; 

(ii)  on  the  other  hand  the  Individual  is  more  and 
more  recognised  as  an  Individual,  a  Unit,  with  rights 
and  privileges  and  choice  of  his  own,  instead  of  merely 
as  a  Dieniber,  e.g.,  of  a  Family  :  see  p.  116. 

One  of  the  meanings  of  the  words  '  Freedom '  and 
'Liberty' (words  so  often  misused)  is  that  the  Individual 
has  a  conscience  of  his  own,  whicii  he  ought  to  obey 
rather  than  such  commands  as  go  against  his  conscience. 


112  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

Among  Unions  may  be  mentioned  the  following 
groups:  of  course  the  same  person  may  belong  to 
several  groups. 

Family,  Clan,  and  Relations; 

Village,  and  Tribe ; 

City-state,  Town,  and  Locality  generally  ; 

Nation ; 

'Occupation  '-Groups,  e.g.  Groups  according  to 

business  or  profession  [politics,  war,  etc.] ; 

pleasure     or    exercise     [a    powerful     group    in 
England] ; 

social  life  [wealth,  culture  and  education,  etc.] ; 
Religion. 

We  shall  have  to  ask  how  far  the  Individual  is 
independent,  and  how  far  he  depends  on  one  or  more 
of  these  and  other  Groups  and  its  Customs,  etc.  In 
other  words,  what  claims  has  each  Group  upon  the 
Individual? 

A  splendid  Essay-Question  is:  "What  are  the 
Bonds  of  Union  within  any  particular  Group,  or 
between  any  two  or  more  Groups?"  For  example, 
"W'liat  are  the  Bonds  of  Union  between  England 
and  America  [or  Australia]   to-day?" 

Here  we  should  start  with  the  Family  as  the  basis, 
because  (see  p.  65)  it  is  better  known  to  us.  The 
reader  should  work  it  out  first  by  himself 


We  only  need  to  mention  here  a  very  few  out  of 
many  Bonds — 

(i)  connexion  by  blood  and  marriage ;  and  by  tra- 
ditions ; 


SUB-HEADINGS  FOR  PERIOD-HEADINGS       113 

(ii)  similan't}-  of 

appearance, 

dress, 

manners, 

speech  and  sa)-inc^s, 
(iii)    locality    and     its    associations,     including    the 
'  home ' ; 

(iv)  Government  (by  the  father,  or  mother) ; 
(v)  similarity  of  interests  ; 

(vi)  ?  hostility  to,  or  jealousy  of,  some  other  Family  ; 
(vii)   the   habit  for   a    Family   to    be   closely  united 
together ;  it  is  partly  an  instinct  also ; 
(viii)  intercourse ; 
(ix)  religion. 

There  are  many  other  Bonds  of  Union,  which  the 
reader  should  work  out  carefully  in  odd  moments, 
and  then  apply,  e.g.  to  the  Bonds  of  Union  between 
England  and  America. 

State-Government. 

This  by  itself  will  form  a  vast  Essay,  and  even 
one  kind  of  Government  alone  (e.g.  Aristocrac)-)  is 
a  large  topic.  Only  a  few  Sub- Headings,  therefore, 
can  be  suggested  here,  in  addition  to  those  on  p.  92 
foil.  (e.g.  Helps  and  Causes,  Hindrances,  Aims,  Effects). 

I.  First  of  all,  as  opposed  to  State-Government,  we 
may  have  Party-Government  or  Government  by  a 
single  person,  Local-Government  (e.g.  in  Counties  or 
Districts),  Tribal  or  Family-Government,  Individual 
Independence  (such  as  Herbert  Spencer  advocates), 
and  Anarchy. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  can  have  above  the  State- 
I 


114  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,  ETC. 

Government,  League  -  Government,  or  International- 
Government  (like  that  of  the  United  States).  Some 
day  there  may  be  a  World-Government. 

2.  An  excellent  Essay-Question  would  be  '  What  is 
the  SpJiere  of  State-Government,  and  what  oiLght  it  to 
be?'  The  Period-Headings  (see  p.  83)  should  here  be 
gone  through  one  by  one,  e.g.  Communication,  Unions, 
Order,  Justice,  Rights,  Morality,  War,  etc. 

It  is  well  worth  considering  how  far  the  State-Govern- 
ment ought  or  ought  not  to  'interfere'  in  certain 
departments  :  Herbert  Spencer  seems  to  be  in  favour 
of  the  smallest  amount  of  interference  by  any  Govern- 
ment. But  much  depends  on  the  character  of  the 
Government  (ours  is  partly  a  Government  by  the  elected 
Rich),  on  the  State  of  Civilisation,  etc.  There  seems 
little  doubt  that,  if  the  Government  is  intelligent,  it 
can  '  interfere ',  better  than  any  other  power,  in  matters 
like  Health,  Education,  War,  etc.  But  Commerce,  Re- 
ligion, and  other  spheres,  are  far  more  doubtful. 

So  far,  then,  we  have  : — i.  Contrasts  to  State-Govern- 
ment ;  2.  Sphere  of  State-Governments. 
We  might  then  consider 

3.  Who  govern  ? 

4.  How  are  they  {a)  chosen, 

{b)  supported, 
{c)  checked  ? 

5.  How  long  do  they  govern? 

6.  By  what  means  ? 

7.  How  well,  or  badly? 

8.  The  Appearance  is  often  to  be  distinguished  from 
the  Reality  (see  p.  155).  Thus  our  own  Government  is 
often  classed  as  a  limited  Monarchy,  though  the  Queen's 


SUB-HEADINGS   FOR  PERIOD-HEADINGS       115 

power  is  chiefly  Social ;  Rome  at  one  time  was  governed 
practically  by  the  Senate,  but  theoretically  by  the  Popular 
Assemblies. 

Of  the  above  Headings,  No.  4  {a)  and  ib),  the  Basis  of 
the  Government,  deserves  a  special  Essay  to  itself.  The 
Period-Headings  (p.  Si)  will  suggest  many  of  the  Bases 
of  any  Government,  e.g.  of  the  Roman  Senate  when 
it  was  i?i  its  prime :  for  instance, 

Unity; 

Excellence  (intellectual  and  moral) ; 

Religion  ; 

Character  (of  the  Romans) ; 

Custom  ; 

Wealth  ; 

War ; 

etc. 

Order,  and  Justice. 

Similar  Headings  would  apply  here.     For  we  might 

1.  contrast  disorder  and  injustice; 

and  then  consider 

2.  the  sphere  of  Justice,  i.e.  the  offences  with  which 
it  deals,  and  the  penalties  which  it  inflicts. 

3.  WHio  judge,  and  who  decide  the  penalties? 

4.  How  are  the}-  {a)  chosen, 

{b)  supported, 
{c)  checked  ? 

5.  For  how  long  do  they  hold  power  ? 

6.  What  are  the  processes? 

7.  Are  the  decisions  fair  or  unfair? 

8.  Is  Justice  expensive  or  cheap? 

9.  Is  it  the  same  for  all?  and  so  on. 


ii6  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

Rights  of  Individuals,  as  zvcU  as  of  '  Groups' 

We  may  consider  how  the  Rights  are  enforced,  e.g. 

by  the  Government  and  Law  and  the  Executive,  or  by 

Custom. 

Among  the  Rights  of  Individuals  ma\'  be  : — 
safety  of  person  and  property ; 
healthy  conditions  for  body  and  mind ; 
education  ; 
freedom  of 

movement  (locomotion)  ; 

speech  ; 

action  ('  the  freedom  to  do  right ', '  the  liberty 
of  conscience ') ; 

intercourse ; 

redress ; 

etc. 

A  good  many  of  these  will  be  opposed  to  an  arbitrary 
and  '  interfering '  State-Government. 
For  Virtues,  see  p.  99,  above. 

Religion. 

As  opposed  to  real  Religion  we  have  not  only 
Superstition  and  mere  Ceremonies,  but  also  Scepticism, 
etc. 

We  may  consider  here  : — 
the  God  or  gods  ; 
the   priests,   and   how  far  they  form   a  separate 

class  or  caste ; 
the  places  of  worship  ; 
the  ceremonies,  festivals,  etc. : 
the  expenditure  of  money  and  time. 


SUB-HEADINGS  FOR   PERIOD-HEADINGS      117 

The  beliefs  must  be  often  distinguished  from 
{a)  the  behefs  or  spirit  of  ahen  Reh'gions  ; 
{b)  Scepticism,  free  thought,  and  Philosophy ; 
(f)  Science  ; 
{d)  the  actual  life  and  '  luorks '  of  the  people. 

This  last  is  the  most  important  distinction  of  all. 
No  Religion,  perhaps,  has  ever  shown  such  a  contrast 
between  its  real  spirit,  and  the  actual  lives  of  most 
of  those  who  profess  to  hold  it,  as  Christianity. 

Of  course  here,  as  under  most  of  these  Headings, 
the  Effects  are  to  be  estimated,  e.g.  the  Effects  on 
Government,  on  Virtue,  and  on  the  Intellect.  The 
actual  Effects  of  the  Religion  should  be  worked  out 
as  a  separate  Essay,  the  Headings  on  p.  83  being 
taken  one  by  one. 

For  the  Aims  and  Motives,  see  p.  102,  above. 

For  the  Thoughts  and  Ideas,  see  p.  98,  which  will  also 
give  some  ideas  about — 

the  Poivers  and  Capacities.  For  the  rh}-sical  or 
Bodily  powers,  see  p.  98. 

Education. 

In  its  widest  sense  Education  would  not  be  a  know- 
ledge of  hosts  of  isolated  and  useless  facts,  all  more 
or  less  "the  same  size",  but  would  be  opposed  to  the 
state  of  the  person  whose  mind,  body,  and  character 
are  undeveloped.  People  are  usually  said  to  have 
had  an  Education  even  if  they  have  never  learnt 
how  to  use  their  limbs  rightly,  how  to  keep  health}-, 
how  to  earn  a  livelihood,  how  to  make  use  of  what 
they  have  learnt  and  what  they  can  observe  for  them- 


ii8  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

selves,  how  to  draw  inferences,  how  to  speak  moderately- 
well,  and — among  numbers  of  other  signs  of  an  all- 
round  Education — how  to  be  happy  and  to  do  good 
to  others. 

The  best  Means  of  Education  deserve  a  careful  study, 
not  only  for  the  purposes  of  Essay- Writing  and  Speak- 
ing, but  for  the  purposes  of  daily  life.  Among  them 
are  the  following  : — 

HcaltJi  and  Exercise.  I  put  these  first,  for  they  should 
begin  with  the  earliest  years  and  be  kept  up  till  nearly 
the  end  of  life.  Some  Exercises  are  better  than  others. 
I  consider  games  like  Football  to  be  the  best. 

Reading  (books,  papers,  etc.). 

Learning  (at  Schools,  Lectures,  etc.) :  among  the 
subjects  should  be 

Physiology  and  Health, 
Natural  History, 
Music  and  Art, 
etc. 

Intercourse,  of  the  People  with  one  another,  and  with 
those  of  other  Nations  (by  travel,  etc.). 

Free  speech  and  free  writing. 

These  are  only  a  {q.\n  Headings  out  of  man}\  Some 
day  I  hope  to  write  more  fully  on  the  subject. 

Language. 

Besides  its  value  as  Evidence  (see  p.  146),  the  Sources 
of  its  Vocabulary  are  to  be  noted,  and  the  extent  of  its 
Dialects,  and  the  general  characteristics  (merits  and 
faults)  of  the  Spoken  and  Literary  Languages. 

Among  other  questions,  one  may  ask — 

How  far  are  foreign  Languages  known  and  spoken  ? 


SUn-HEADINGS  FOR   PERIOD-HEAD/XGS      119 

How  far  does  the  Literary  differ  from  the  Spoken, 
and  tliis  from  the  'Vulgar'  Dialect? 

Literature. 

For  a  list  of  some  of  the  departments  (^f  Poetical 
and  Prose  Writings  see  p.  131  ;  and  for  Criticisms,  see 
p.  132.     Literature  might  include 

Philosophy,  and,  to  some  extent, 

the  Sciences,  which  tend  to  become  better  known 
among  the  Common  People. 

For  the  'Arts',  such  as  Music,  Painting,  Sculpture, 
and  Architecture,  see  under  the  'Occupations'  (p.  120). 

Inventions  are  worth  notice.  The  effects  of  the 
Steam -Engine,  of  Machinery  (e.g.  for  Printing),  of 
P^lectricity,  of  Photography,  etc.,  are  of  course  well 
worth  a  separate  Essay. 

Social  Life,  and  Home  Life. 

Ancient  Histories  used  to  say  little  on  this  topic. 
Wars  and  Battles,  Kings  and  Governments,  Religion, 
etc.,  these  were  the  main  themes. 

Now,  however,  we  tend  more  and  more  to  look  into 
the  state  of  Social  Life  and  Home  Life.  A  book  like 
Escott's  "  England  "  shows  how  important  these  topics 
are. 

Among  the  Headings  might  be : — 
Intercourse ; 
Amusements : — 

games,  athletics,  and  '  s[)ort ', 
exercise  in  general, 

entertainments  (theatres,  dinners,  etc.), 
festivals  and  holidays  ; 


I20  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

temperance  and  moderation,  or  the  reverse  ; 
customs  and  habits ; 
daily  Hfe ; 

position  of  women,  and  of  various  classes  (p.  no), 
marriage,  and  divorce. 
Under  Home  Life,  we  might  also  note 

the      relations      of     father,      mother,      children, 

servants,   and    relatives  ; 
education  of  children,  and  of  servants. 
Here  also  we  might  note 
tJie positioii  of  women: — e.g. 

their  occupations  indoors  and  out-of-doors  ; 
their  aims ; 
their  education. 
Dress  is  a  matter  of  no  small  importance,  as  wc  shall 
realise  some  day.     Whether  a  certain  fashion  is  natural 
and  healthy,  or  unnatural  and  unhealthy,  is  a  subject  de- 
serving careful  attention. 

Health. 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  average  Health  of  the  [jopu- 
lation  is  to  be  observed.      We  must  not  take  a  few 
athletes  as  typical  of  the  whole  Nation. 
Among  the  tests*  will  be  : — 
the  appearance  ; 

the  work  done  by  the  body  and  the  intellect ; 
the  standard  of  morality  ; 

the  flourishing  (or  the  reverse)  of  doctors,  drugs, 
stimulants,  etc.,  and  of  diseases. 
Occupations.     See  also  the  Classes  (p.  no). 
The  place    of    the    Occupation    is    worth    observing, 
whether  it  be  in  town  or  country,  on  the  sea-coast,  or 
on  river  or  at  sea. 
*  See  "Muscle,  Brain,  and  Diet"  (publislicd  by  Messrs.  Sonnenschein). 


SUB-HEADINGS  FOR  PERIOD-HEADINGS       12 1 

The  am<junt  of  idleness  is  also  to  be  observed  ; 
whether  it  be  'sheer'  idleness,  or  be  due  to  want  of 
cmplo}'mcnt  or  to  ill-health,  etc.  The  ignorant  would 
like  to  class  here  the  professional  athletes  and  many 
amateurs  also.  Ikit  the  openminded  and  intelligent 
public  will  realise  that  games  and  exercises  are  one 
of  the  most  important  '  Occupations '  of  the  British 
people  :  without  them  we  should  soon  become  '  a  nation 
of  shopkeepers',  or,  rather,  something  far  worse. 

Among  'Occupations'  may  be  mentioned  these: — 
Country  life  ; 

Professions,  etc. : — 

Politics  and  Government-work, 

Law, 

Religion, 

Education, 

Literature, 

Science, 

Arts, 

War, 

Army  and  Navy, 
Health, 

Doctors  and  Inspectors, 
Engineering. 

Cofiiiiierce,  and  Trades: — 
Financing — 

Banking,  Mone)--lending,  etc. 
Commercial  life  (of  merchants} — 

Clerkships,  etc. 
Shop-keeping  (wholesale  or  retail), 
Agencies. 


122  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

Industries : — 

acrricultural  and  '  pastoral ', 

food,  etc., 

building,  etc., 

manufactories, 

dress, 

carrying  and  conveying. 

Scnumits,  and  Slaves. 

Wealth  and  Finance  (cp.  above). 

The  Wealth  of  the  State, 

of  groups  (e.g.  Companies), 
of  classes  (e.g.  the  'Aristocracy'), 
of  individuals, 
may  be  noted. 

The    Wealth  of  the    State  may  be  considered  with 
reference  to 

its  sources  (esp.  Taxation),  and  amount ; 
the  ways  of  collecting  the  Wealth  ; 
the  w^ays  of  spending  it. 
The  Wealth  of  individuals  also  has 
its  sources  and  its  character, 

e.g.  land  and  its  '  products'  (p.  107), 
coinage, 
paper  money, 
'  credit ', 
etc. ; 
the  amount  of  it,  and  its  distribution  ; 
the  ways  in  which  it  is  spent. 
Under  Finance  we  may  call  attention  to 
charity ; 
banks ; 
the  relation  of  work,  payment,  selling,  and  buying. 


SUB-IIRADli\GS  FOR  PERIOD-HEADINGS      123 

Other  Peoples,  connected  in  some  way. 

The   actual    Connexions    may   be   very  various,   and 
often    hard    to   define;    e.g.   see   the    Bonds  of    Union 

(p.     112). 

The  list  of  these  Other  Peoples  might  include : — 

1.  Subjects,  who  form  the  Empire  proper:  what  is  their 

relation  to  the  home -country,  and  what  is  the 
nature  of  the  rule?     And  see  Headings  on  p.  83, 

2.  Allies,  for  a  time,  or  as  members   of   a   more   or 

less   permanent   League,  or  as  '  United  States '. 
And  see  Headings  on  p.  ?)'^. 

3.  Colonies.     Here,  also,  what  is  the  relation  to  the 

home-country.^      How  far  off  are  the  Colonies.'' 
And  see  id. 

4.  People  connected  by 

blood, 

marriage, 

intercourse  and  travel 

trade   and    commerce.       Here    the    question    of 

Protection  will  come  in. 
See  also  Headings  on  p.  83. 

5.  Rulers.      An   Essay  on   India  would  have  to  in- 

clude an  account  of  England,  the  ruler  of  India. 
And  see  id. 

6.  Enemies.     See  below,  and  under  '  War '. 

With    all    these    Peoples,   sometliiug   might    be   said 
under  man)'  Headings,  such  as 
Geography, 

communication, 
all  the  classes, 
Government ; 
and  see  the  Headings  on  p.  Z^. 


124  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

The    effects    of    the    home -people    on    the    Other 

Peoples,  and  vice  versa,  must  be  estimated. 

War :  see  the  General  Headings  on  p.  92. 

In   contrast    to    War,   we   have    Peace,    Arbitration, 

Compromise  by  fines  etc. 

A  {q-w  Headings  (fi-om  p.  92) : — 

the  causes  and    aims,  and  the  side  with  which 

the  greater  part  of  the  blame  seems  to  lie ; 

tlie  expenses  of  money,  life,  property,  prestige, 

etc. ; 

the  characteristics — e.g. 

ways  of  fighting, 

length  of  war. 

TJie  Aruiy. 

Many    questions    might    be    asked    here :    e.g.    with 

reference  to 

compulsory  service, 

standing  army, 

subdivision  of  work  (specialisation). 

As  to  tJie  Troops,  from  what  classes  are  they  chiefly 

drawn, 

citizens  (include  volunteers  here)  ; 

mercenaries ; 

allies  ? 

The  proportions  should  be  given. 

The  divisions,  large  and  small,  e.g. 

heavy-armed)  .    .  ,  , 

,.   ,  ,    kniantry  and  cavalry, 

hght-armed    J  ^  ^ 

artillery  and  siege-train, 

commissariat, 

transport-.service, 

garrison- duty, 

etc. 


SUB-HEADINGS  FOR  PERIOD-HEADINGS      125 

The  tactics. 

The  arms,  etc. 

The  privilcL^es  of  troops  and  officers, 
their  position, 
rewards. 

For  the  General,  sec  p.  105. 

The  Navy  might  have  somewhat  similar  Headings. 

The  relative  size  and  importance  of  Army  and  Navy 
should  be  considered. 

Of  course  both  War,  and  the  Army  and  the  Navy, 
cannot  be  considered  apart  from  the  Geography  of  the 
Country  (p.  107). 

The  Subsequent  Period  should  have  Headings  like 
those  of  the  Period  itself  (p.  92). 

This  Period  is  important  because  it  gives  many 
results  of  the  Period  itself:  in  the  earlier  Period  were 
the  germs  or  eggs  which  were  onh'  developed  or 
hatched  later  on.     See  'Fallacies'  (p.   150). 

We  are  wont  to  judge  the  policy  of  a  Politician  or 
a  Party  by  its  immediate  effects.  This  may  be  quite 
unfair.  It  is  possible  that  the  real  and  vital  effects 
will  not  come  into  being  till  20  or  50  or  even  100  }'ears 
later.  Thus  Pericles'  policy  must  not  be  judged  by  his  own 
Period  alone:  we  must  look  beyond:  when  we  do,  we  may 
consider  it  bad.     '  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.' 

An  Individual  also  must  be  judged  not  only  by  what 
he  is,  but  by  what  he  is  becoming  (his  teiideticy),  and 
also,  to  some  extent,  by  what  his  children  are  :  see  p.  100. 

It  is  this  principle  (of  taking  into  account  the  follow- 
ing period)  that  gives  Ancient  History  its  unique  value. 
We  are  not  }'et  in  a  position  to  teach  the  History  of 
to-day.     W^e  shall  not  be,  for  at  least  another  fift)-  years. 


126  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

The  Previous  Period  is  no  less  valuable.  It  should 
also  have  much  the  Same  Headings  as  on  p.  83. 

While  the  Subsequent  Period  gives  some  of  the 
results  (of  course  it  does  not  consist  entirely  of 
results),  the  Previous  Period  gives  some  of  the  causes 
and  Jiclps,  and  —  a  vital  consideration  —  some  of  the 
Jihidrances  as  well. 

In  other  words,  the  Period  itself  did  not  suddenly 
start  into  being,  self-made,  as  it  were :  it  was  what  it 
was,  to  a  great  extent  because  of,  or  in  spite  of,  the 
Previous  Period.  There  la\'  the  germs  which  developed 
within  the  Period  itself. 

TJius  each  Period  is  not  simply  a  7init,  but  is  also 
a  link — the  link  between  the  Previous  Period  and  the 
Subsequent  Period,  and  to  some  extent  the  result  of  the 
former  and  the  cause  of  the  latter. 

And  yet  each  Period  is  a  unit  too.  The  people  do 
inherit  a  certain  state  and  certain  conditions  :  but  it 
rests  with  these  people  to  make  or  to  mar.  Only  let 
us  remember  that  the  Previous  Period  does  impose 
certain  limitations,  and  the  Subsequent  Period  does  giv-e 
us  evidence  as  well. 

We  saw  that  the  Individual  also  is  what  he  is  partly 
because  of  his  Jieirdity,  i.e.  the  '  Previous  Period ',  so 
to  speak.  We  saw  that  his  effects  might  continue  after 
his  death,  or  indeed  might  not  appear  or  flourish  at  all 
till  after  his  death,  in  the  '  Subsequent  Period  '.  Never- 
theless, he  is  a  unit,  an  Individual.  His  heredity  and 
his  conditions  or  environment  give  him  his  stock-in- 
trade  and  his  sphere  of  action.  It  rests  with  him  to 
make  or  to  mar :  and  the  real  and  full  result  of  his 
life  may  not  come  till  a  decade  or  a  whole  century  shall 
have  passed. 


SUB-HEADINGS  FOR   PERTOD-IIEADINGS      127 

Changes  ivithin  the  Period  itself. 

As  with  the  Individual,  so  with  the  Period,  it  is 
necessary  to  discover  the  Changes  and  tendencies  in 
any  direction,  e.g.  Changes  of  population  (immigration 
and  emigration,  growth  of  the  town -population,  etc.). 
Many  of  the  above  Headings  should  be  taken.  The 
Previous  Period  and  the  Subsequent  Period  will  perhaps 
be  the  best  guide  as  to  the  tendency,  even  if  these 
exaggerate  it. 

The  Stage  of  Progress. 

As  we  must  not  judge  a  man  apart  from  the  Period 
in  which  he  lived  (his  environment),  so  we  must  not 
judge  a  People  apart  from  its  environment.  W^e  must 
not  expect  in  an  Ancient  Nation  the  standard  of  virtue 
which  we  may  demand  to-day. 

For  different  signs  of  Progress,  see  p.  135  foil.  Here 
just  a  few  features  of  modern  times  may  be  mentioned. 

1.  Geography  (see  p.  107)  is  better  known  and  better 
used. 

2.  States  are  larger. 

3.  More  classes  are  included  or  considered,  esp. 
women,  children,  and  foreigners. 

4.  The  individual  (p.  iii)  is  also  recognised  as  a 
unit,  not  merely  as  a  part  of  the  machinery  of  the 
family  or  City- State,  etc.  He  gets  more  share  in 
Government,   justice,    comfort,    education,    and    so    on 

(P-   ii6)- 

5.  Specialisatioii  is  more  and  more  marked.  In 
Government,  for  instance,  instead  of  a  single  person 
or  set  of  persons  managing  War,  Justice,  Religion, 
Finance,  etc.,  we   have    sets  of   persons  who  take  up 


128  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,    ETC. 

one  of  these  things  as  a  speciahty,  and,  later  on,  onl\- 
a  part  (perhaps  only  a  tiny  part)  of  one  of  them, 
e.g.  one  department  of  Criminal  Law.  And  so  it  is 
with  Commerce,  Industries,  Education,  etc, 

6.  Fresh  Inventions  are  constantly  made,  and  also 
made  known  to  the  public.  Knowledge  generally  be- 
comes more  accurate  and  more  widely  diffused. 

Many  other  features  should  be  considered.  But  here 
it  is  enough  to  say  that,  when  we  judge  a  People,  we 
must  take  into  account  not  only  the  Geography  of  the 
People,  and  other  advantages  and  disadvantages,  but 
also  the  general  state  of  civilisation  at  the  time. 

It  is  this  that  makes  the  Athenians  so  wonderful. 

Leadbig  Men  and  Wotiien  may  be 
a.  typical  of  the  People,  in  most  respects ;  or 
/3.  an  exaggeration  of  some  of  their  features,  perhaps 
also  anticipating  some  of  the  features  of  a  later  Period  ; 
y.  contrasts  to  the  People,  in  most  respects,  or  '  pro- 
tests '  against  them,  as  Socrates  was,  and  as  Jesus  was. 

For  QiLotations,  see  p.  163. 

For  Contrasts,  see  p.  291. 

I'or  Parallels  and  Comparisons,  pp.  279,  281. 


CIIArTI'.R  XXI 1 1.  HEADINGS  FOR  AN  ESSAY, 
ETC.,  ON  AN  AUTHOR,  AND 
FOR   LrrERARY    CRITICISM. 


At  fir.st  the  Author  .slunilcl  be  treated  (briefly)  as  a 
Person :  .see  p.  93.  We  .should  consider  the  evidences, 
the  events  of  his  Hfe,  the  helps  and  causes  and 
hindrances  (heredity  and  environment),  the  description, 
including  changes,  the  aim.s,  the  effects,  etc. 

Then  we  should  consider  him  as  au  AutJior,  and 
here  the  Pleadings  will  be  somewhat  similar  (see  p.  92). 

We  shall  have  (e.g.  in  the  case  of  Vergil  or  Livy) : — 

Evideftces,  etc. 

InstcDices,  viz.  his  works,  which  can  be  classified  in 
various  ways,  e.g.  b}'  their  subjects. 

Helps  and  Causes,  and 

Hifidianees. 

Here  we  should  ha\c  not  only  the  hercdit}-,  and  the 
Period,  the  groups  of  famil)-,  friends,  etc.  (p.  112),  and 
the  training,  but  also 

{a)  previous  Literature, 

{b)  Literature  of  the  Period  itself 

Description  and  Individuality  of  the  Work. 
In    estimating    the    work,    we    must    remember    to 
separate  [see  p.  213  foil.] 

I.  the  Ideas,  from 

II.  the  Expression  of  the  Ideas,  and  the  St\-lc. 

For  the    Ideas  may  be   disgustingly   unhealthy 

e\en  though  the  Style  be  most  exquisite. 

lender  I.,  the  Ideas,  will  come  the  Ideas  themselves, 

which  should    be  interesting,  show   knowledge  of   the 

subject,  of   human  nature,  etc.,  be  fair  and  true  (e.g. 

H  J29 


I30  2DEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

showing  sympathy  with  those  who  hold  opposite  views), 
healthy,  well-selected,  well-proportioned,  well-arranged, 
etc.     See  p.  60  foil. 

Under  11.,  the  Kxprcssion  of  Ideas,  will  come  such 
Headings  as  ^ 

Clearness, 

Brevity, 

Variety, 

Rhythm, 

etc.     See  p.  202  foil. 

III.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  different  parts 
of  an  Author's  work  must  often  be  judged  quite 
separately ;  e.g.  Cicero's  Letters,  his  Public  Speeches, 
his  Philosophical  Writings,  and  his  Poetry. 

IV.  The  Aims  and  objects  of  the  Author  are  of 
importance  :   we  have  to  consider  not  only 

(i)  what  his  Aims  were,  and  how  good  or  bad  they 
were,  but  also 

(ii)  how  far  he  succeeded,  according  to  these  Aims. 

Critics  often  forget  that  an  Author  may  succeed  in 
what  he  aims  at  doing,  even  though  he  may  be  aiming- 
very  low. 

V.  Changes  are  common.  An  Author's  early  writings 
may  be  better  than  his  later  writings,  or  vice  versa. 

The  Effects  (good  or  bad;  may  be  traced 
(i)  upon  people,  and  their  lives, 

(ii)  upon  Literature  ;  and  these  Effects  ma}'  appear 
(iii)  immediately,  or 
(iv)  not  till  after  a  long  interval. 

Here,  as  everywhere,  the  most  important  points  must 
be  made  clear  and  emphasised  by 
Comparisons,  and 
Contrasts. 


rOR  AN  ESSAY  ON  AN  AUTHOR  131 

If  we  compare  and  contrast  Burke  with  Demosthenes, 
or  vice  versa,  we  shall  throw  light  on,  and  emphasise, 
every  point  in  which  they  agree  and  every  point  in 
which  they  differ. 

Quotations  may  be  used  (see  p.  163). 

A  few  Classes  of  Writings  mav  be  noticed  : — 

A.  Poetry. 

Heroic  or  Epic  Poems. 

Hymns,  and  Sacred  Poetry. 

Songs,  and  Personal  Poetry. 

Dramatic. 

Comic. 

I'Lpigrammatic. 

B.  Prose. 

History  and  Narrative. 

Biography. 

Special  Periods. 
Geography. 
Essays  and  Articles. 
Oratory. 

Philosoph}',  and  Religion. 
Learned  Work. 

Sciences. 
'Art'  and  Illustration. 
Education,  and  Training. 
Translation. 
Humour. 

Drama  (Tragedy  and  Comedy). 
Fiction. 
'Journalism'. 
Criticism, 
etc.,  etc. 
Both  lists  might  easily  be  extended. 


132  IDEAS:   HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

Note. 

Ill  Literary  Criticism  it  is  absolutely  vital  to  separate 
the  estimate  of  the  Ideas  from  the  estimate  of  the 
Expression  or  Style  ;  and  not  only  this,  but  also  to 
separate  the  different  ways  of  regarding  the  Ideas 
and  the  Style. 

For  instance,  an  Author  may  have  very  unwliolesome 
Ideas,  but  the  Ideas  may  yet  be  true  to  nature,  and 
may  be  '  well-proportioned '  (p.  268),  and  well-arranged. 
Or,  again,  his  Ideas  may  be  wholesome,  but  untrue. 
Or  they  may  be  wholesome  and  true,  but  ill-adapted 
to  the  '  audience  '. 

It  is  our  part  to  consider  which  merits  and  which 
faults  the  Author  combines.  The  number  of  '  com- 
binations '  is  enormous. 

And  so  u  ith  the  Expression.  It  ma\'  be  clear, 
forcible,  rhythmical,  etc.,  without  the  Ideas  being  at 
all  worthy  of  praise  either  for  their  healthiness,  or 
for  their  truth,  or  for  their  fitness  for  the  Author's 
purpose.  Again,  the  Expression  may  be  quite  clear, 
but  wanting  in  brevity,  and  in  Rhythm. 

Here,  again,  we  shall  have  to  consider  which  merits 
and  which  faults  the  Author  combines. 

As  to  Expression,  the  passage  from  the  New  Testa- 
ment (p.  211)  should  always  be  borne  in  mind.  It  will 
recall  most  of  the  merits  of  Style. 

It  must  be  repeated  that  the  Author's  advantages 
and  disadvantages,  his  aims,  and  his  'changes'  (p.  100), 
must  always  be  kept  in  \iew. 


CiiArriLK  XXIV.    topics  for  composition, 

WITH    HEADINGS    FOR    AN 
ESSAY    ON    PROGRESS. 


Some  Types  of  Subjects  (cp.  p.  9). 

I.  For  the  '  Period' -Headings  {see p.  '6'^). 

(a)    The  Elizabethan  Age. 

(d)  The  Results  of  English  Conquests. 

(e)  The  Causes  of  England's  Success. 

{(f)     The  Bonds  of  Union  between  luigland  and 

her  Colonies. 
(e)     The  Proper  .S[)here  of  Govcrnnicnt  Control. 
(/)    Progress  (see  p.  135). 
(g)   '  Failure    is    the    onl}'    sure    Foundation    of 

Success '. 

II.  /''or  iJie  '  General  Essay' -Headings  {p.  92).     Jlaiiy 
of  these  involve  the  Period-IIcadim^s  also. 

{in)  Absolute    Monarchy    [or,     Aristocracy,    or, 

Democracy]. 

(/')  Slavery  [(jr,  Lilx-rt)-]. 

(t)  War. 

{ti)  Naval  Power. 

{e)  Colonisation. 

(/")  Games  and  Athletics. 

{g)  iMiglish  Public  Schools. 

(Ji)  Printing. 

(/)  Decision. 

(_/')  Education. 


134  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

{k)    Amusements. 
(/)     Travelling, 
(w)  Books  and  Reading. 
(n)    Newspapers. 
(o)    Music. 
(/)    Poverty. 
{q)    Fire. 
Hundreds  might  be  added.      See  'Pros  and  Cons' 
(Sonnenschein  and  Co.). 

HI.  For  the  Headings  for  a  Person  {p.  93). 

{a)  Philip  of  Macedon  [or  Caesar,  or  Napoleon]. 
{b)   Cicero  [or  Gladstone]. 
{c)    Watt  [or  Stephenson]. 
{d)  Lord  Shaftesbury. 

IV.  For  the  Headings  for  an  Author  {p.  129  >//.). 
id)  Thucydides  [or,  Carlyle]. 
ib)   Livy  [or,  Macaulay]. 
(<:)    Vergil  [or,  Milton]. 
{d)  Browning. 
(e)   Matthew  Arnold. 


HEADINGS  FOR   ESSAY  ON  PROGRESS        135 


Progress. 

To  illustrate  the  use  of  the  '  Period '-Headings  (see 
p.  83),  an  Essay  on  '  Progress '  (or  '  Evolution ')  might 
be  sketched.  The  Ideas  here  arc  not  yet  complete,  nor 
are  they  yet  '  Selected  ',  Underlined,  or  Arranged. 

Evidences  (esp.  instances  and  exarni^lcs) 
Authorities 
points  of  view 
P^allacies,  e.g. 

judging  b\'  upper  classes  only 
by  comfort  only 
by  Churches  only 
by  '  P'^reedom  '  only 

Geograph)-  and  Geology 

more  understood  and  used 
e.g.  wood,  water,  metals,  coal 

Public  Works 

e.g.  walls,  drainage 

Population — every  Class — 
increasing 

more  Classes  included  (p.  no) 
esp.  women  and  slaves 

Communication 

increasing   (steamers  and  railways,  postage 
and  telegraphs) 

opening  of  minds  to  new  ideas 
Unions 

larger,  but 

more  care  for  Individual  (p.  1 16) 


136  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

State-Government 

less  control  over  individual 

sphere  changed 

local  freedom 

division  of  labour  and  specialisation 

Justice,  and  Rights 

Justice  separated  from  Government 

more  Rights  for  individual 
Virtues 

higher  (Ideal)  standard  (p.  99),  for 
n.   individuals 

(i.  States,  and  other  unions  or  groups 
Religion 

tolerance 

philosophy 

Aims  and  Thoughts 

originality  allowed  and  enc(nu"agcd 

Capacities 

specialised  (p.  127) 
Education 

much  of  it  useless 

extended  to  more  classes  (e.g.  women) 

cheaper 

Language 

expresses  more  things  in  more  ways 
a  few  Languages  are  widel)-  spread 

Philosophy,  Sciences,  and  Arts 

more  numerous  Sciences 

each  subdivided  (specialisation) 

used  for  man's  benefit 

more  accurate  methods  of  research 
Inventions 


HEADINGS   FOR  ESSAY  ON  PROGRESS        137 

Social  I,ife,  and  Iloinc-life 

birth  less  important,  wealth  often  more  so 

father's  power  less  supreme 

individual  freer 
Health 

bodily  perhaps  worse 

professed  care 

unnatural  conditions  (cit) -life,  etc) 
Occupations 

more  numerous 

specialisation  and  co-operation 

town-life  and  industries 
Com.merce 

Free  Trade 
Professions 

more     (eg.     teachinc^)     recognised     as     re- 
s[iectable 
Wealth 

money  and  paper-money 

in\-estments 

hugo  fortunes  (uneven  distribution) 

credit 
Finance 

taxation  fairer 

Political  Economy  studied 

Other  Peoples  connected 
Subjects 

huge  Empires 

more  consideration  for  subjects- 
less  oppressed 
Colonies 

more  independent 
further  afield 


13S  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

Allies 


Visitors 


balance  of  power 

more  numerous 
better  treated 

they  are  educated  by  the  visits,  and  them- 
selves serve  as  educators 


Trade 


international  rii^hts 

Free  Trade 
Enemies  and  War 

more  arbitration,  but 

huge  Armies,  of  soldier-specialists. 
Navies 

expense 

deadly  weapons,  etc. 
Leading  Men  and  Women 
Changes  and  tendencies 

towards  a  huge  World-State 

gradual 

To  illustrate  the  use  of  the  '  General  Essay  '-Headings 
(sec  p.  92),  we  might  notice,  e.g. 
Causes  and  Helps 

God's  guiding  hand 
man's  work 
Hindrances 
do. 
backward  movements 

Progress    not   a    straight    upward    line, 
but  a  series  of  curves 
Objections 

some  say  there  is  no  'Progress'  and  improve- 
ment, but  only  change,  or  Evolution. 


CHAPTER    XXV.     AUTHORITIES,    AND    THEIR 
FAULTS   AND    FAILINGS: 
WITH   A   RHYME. 


W'lTii  regard  to  the  quoting  of  Authorities,  sec  p.  163, 
and  for  the  right  way  of  reading  Books  and  listening 
to  Lectures,  see  pp.  352,  358.  It  is  pointed  out  there 
how  the  information  must  not  only  be  absorbed  but 
must  also  be  thoroughly  understood,  digested,  and 
thought  over,  and  also  (if  possible)  applied. 

Here  I  shall  speak  of  Authorities  only  in  so  far  as 
they  are  Authorities  for  the  Ideas  in  the  Essay.  Every 
Essay  should  mention  tlic  Authorities  on  which  its 
statements  are  based,  that  is  to  say,  if  there  arc  any 
such  Authorities  ;  there  is  too  great  a  tendency  to  trust 
implicitly  to  the  statements  made  by  well-known  people, 
and  it  is  important  that  every  statement  should  be 
given   only  for  wliat   it  is  worth.     There  should  be   a 

distinction  between  '  This  is  so,'  and  '  Sir says  that 

this  is  so '. 

It  is  necessary  for  every  Writer  and  Speaker  to  know 
exactly  where  his  Authorities  are  deficient  and  to  state 
these  deficiencies  clearly.  It  is  especially  necessary 
when  the  subject  is  about  former  times,  or  when  it 
includes  former  times,  as  in  a  Historical  Sketch,  or  in 
parallels  from  Ancient  Histor}'. 


139 


I40  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 


Faults  and  Failings  of  Authorities. 

Supposing  we  had  to  do  an  Essay  on  'Rome  in  the 
time  of  the  Early  RepubHc,'  our  Authority  would  in 
the  main  be  Livy,  just  as  for  English  History  our 
Authorities  might  be  Macaulay,  etc. :  we  should  have 
to  consider  how  far  such  Authorities  were  adequate  or 
inadequate. 

1.  On  p.  150  we  shall  see  how  many  errors  are  due 
to  the  omission  of  something,  and,  with  regard  to  our 
Authorities,  we  notice  that  many  of  them  are  lost 
either  wholly  or  in  part.  The  Historians  from  whom 
Livy  drew  his  narrative  are  mostly  lost,  and  a  great 
deal  of  Livy  hiniself  is  lost  also. 

2.  And  this  is  not  all  :  for  the  writers  omit  a  great 
number  of  important  topics.  We  know  how,  till  quite 
recently,  English  Histories  were  full  of  Wars  and 
battles,  lists  of  Kings,  and  Court-intrigues,  changes  in 
Government,  and  so  on.  They  omitted  things  which 
now  we  consider  scarcely  if  at  all  less  important  than 
these,  and  which,  as  the  years  go  on,  may  gradually 
come  to  be  considered  as  even  more  important,  for 
instance,  liealth,  the  state  of  the  poorer  classes,  the 
daily  life  of  average  people,  the  Colonies,  and  so  on. 
Hence  the  Authorities  are  as  a  rule  singularly  in- 
adequate when  wc  come  to  deal  with  any  of  the  large 
problems  of  Ancient  Times  or  even  of  what  may  be 
called  the  earlier  Modern  Times. 

3.  Once  again,  the  Authorities  are  apt  to  fall  into 
terrible  Eallacies  (see  p.  150),  e.g.  fixing  their  attention 


AUTHORITIES  ANT)    THEIR  EAUI.TS  141 

on  a  part,  and  excluding-  the  oUicr  parts  which  may 
be  equally  important,  and  drawinc^  their  conclusions 
from  the  one  part  onl)',  as  (see  p.  151)  Max  O'Rell  is 
wont  to  do. 

4.  Nearly  all  writers  are  biassed  in  favour  of  their 
own  times  and  their  own  countr\^,  and  against  other 
times  and  other  countries  ;  {q-w  writers  have  erred 
more  in  this  respect  than  English  Historians.  The 
writing  of  History  in  an  im[)artial  spirit  has  scarcely 
begun  in  our  countr)-.  Writers  are  also  biassed  and 
prejudiced  in  favour  of  their  own  party  or  group,  for 
instance,  their  political  party,  their  friends,  and  their 
family :  which  means  that  they  are  biassed  against  the 
opposing  political  part)',  against  their  personal  enemies, 
and  so  on. 

5.  The  MctJiod  of  man_\-  Authorities,  too,  is  very 
unsatisfact(jr\'. 

The  Summary  of  Events  in  "  Whitaker's  .Almanack'' 
gives  the  events  of  the  }-ear  according  to  the  days 
of  the  year  :  we  pass  on  from  the  name  of  the  Lord 
Ma}'or  to  a  war  in  the  East,  from  the  death  of  a 
member  of  the  Royal  Famil}^  and  the  birthday  of 
another  member,  to  the  opening  of  some  charitable 
institution ;  then  there  may  come  another  allusion  to 
the  War,  and  so  on.  The  whole  account  would  be 
described  in  technical  language  as  wanting  in  con- 
tinuity and  connexion,  as  wanting  in  /^npjrtioti  and 
perspective,  and  as  wanting  in   unity. 

6.  This  want  of  proportion  is  noticeable.  While  the 
writer  w ho  li\es  long  after  the  events  must  err  because 
his  evidence  is  meagre  or  unfair,  the  writer  who  lives 
at  the  time  of,  or  soon  after,  the  events,  is  almost  bound 


142  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,  ETC. 

to  err  because  he  cannot  yet  see  things  in  their  real 
bearing" :  for  the  results  (see  p.  125)  are  not  yet  visible. 

7.  The  Aim  and  object  of  Authorities  often  makes 
them  quite  unfitted  for  use  as  Evidences.  Many  of 
them  wish  to  gain  something  by  their  writings,  to 
please  people,  to  instruct  them,  or  to  blame  or  to 
justify.  With  these  aims  in  view,  they  do  not  mind 
omitting,  adding,  or  altering. 

8.  Nor  must  we  lose  sight  of  their  forgclfulness,  their 
laziness  in  not  examining  Evidences,  and  also 

9.  the  faults  and  omissions  of  the  Authorities  and 
Evidences  -which  tJiey  have  to  use;  and  we  shall  see  that 
thousands  and  thousands  of  the  statements,  which  are 
made  and  repeated  with  absolute  confidence  in  Books 
and  Essays  and  Speeches,  are  insufferably  unreliable. 

10.  Only  then  is  the  writer  wont  to  feel  any  doubt, 
when  the  Authorities  for  a  given  point  are  found  to 
disagree  ;  when  there  is  only  one  Authority,  then  the 
writer  accepts  that  Authority ;  he  assumes  that,  because 
it  is  not  contradicted,  therefore  it  must  be  right.  But, 
when  we  come  to  think  over  the  matter,  tlie  statements 
made  by  only  a  single  Authority  are  apt  to  be  quite 
unreliable,  as  we  can  tell  by  the  mere  fact  that,  when 
several  Authorities  are  found  side  by  side,  they  nearly 
always  differ;  this  should  lead  us  to  suppose  that, 
where  we  only  have  one  Authority  giving  one  account 
of  the  matter,  if  we  had  other  Authorities  surviving 
as  well  we  should  probably  have  other  accounts  of  the 
matter.  But  this  vital  principle  is  little  known  to  the 
public.  It  is  frequently  ignored  even  by  the  most 
critical  Historians  and  Essayists  and  Speakers,  with 
the   curious   result   that,  zvhere  the  Evidences  are  most 


AUTHORITIES  AND    THEIR  EAULTS  143 

meagre,  the  st atone }its  are  viade  with  the  viost  absolute 
confidence,  and,  where  the  Evidences  arc  most  complete, 
scarcely  any  certain  statements  can  be  made  at  all. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  strongest  Evidence  for  truth 
is  not  that  which  one  Authority  says  but  tJiat  about 
li'hich  many  Authorities  agree,  though  they  may  differ 
on  other  matters. 

These  are  only  a  few  words  out  of  many  which  the 
subject  of  Authorities  demand,  but  it  is  enough  to 
show  that  an  Essay  or  Speech  must  not  merely  repeat 
statements  as  absolutely  certain,  but  must  give  the 
Authorities  for  them  and  examine  how  far  these 
Authorities  are  reliable  or  the  reverse. 

VVe  shall  now  show  that  the  same  will  apply  with 
regard  to  the  Iwidences  for  an\'  statement,  apart  from 
the  written  Authorities. 

Even  what  we  discard  may  have  its  value  :  we  may 
not  onl\'  (see  p.  149)  draw  inferences  from  what  is 
omitted  by  the  writer,  but  we  may  also  draw  inferences 
from  what  we  ourselves  decide  to  discard.  We  may 
say  that  so-and-so  is  a  mere  exaggeration,  a  piece  of 
colouring,  a  myth :  but  the  mere  fact  that  it  was 
accepted  by  so  many  people,  and  accepted  perhaps 
without  any  suspicion,  ma}'  give  us  valuable  informa- 
tion as  to  the  minds  of  these  peoi)lc,  their  characters 
and  habits  of  thought. 

But  even  where  we  may  seem  to  have  abundance  of 
Authority,  and  abundance  of  Evidence,  it  may  often 
be  best  to  be  both  candid  and  cautious,  and  to  say, 
'  This  we  should  almost  certainly  reject  (or  accept) ;  this 
very  probably ;  that  probably  ;  that  possibly ;  and  that, 
again,  probably  not '.  Accuracy  often  says  '  Be  content 
with  various  degrees  of  probability  \ 


144  IDEAS:    HOW   TO    COLLECT,   ETC. 

As  an  Exercise  in  finding  out  the  chief  faults  of 
Authorities,  it  might  be  as  well  to  make  a  list  of,  and 
classify,  and  find  the  causes  of,  the  faults  of  the  follow- 
ing : — Fairy  Stories,  Legends  and  Myths,  accounts  by 
common  people  or  children,  the  writers  in  the  tiine 
of  Louis  XIV.,  'How  Bill  Adams  won  the  Battle  of 
Waterloo  '.  There  are  plent}-  of  other  fields  for  practice 
e.g.  in  ever\'(lay  conversation. 

A  Rhyme,  giving  some  Failings  of  the  Authorities. 

Authorities  are  often  lost,  the}'  sometimes 

add,  or  change, 
exaggerate,  accumulate,  omit,  or  rearrange, 
from   interest,  or  desire  to   please,   teach, 

blame,  or  justify, 
or    from    forgetful ness    or    sloth,   or    from 

some  Fallacy. 
They    often    lack    proportion,    continuity, 

broad  grasp, 
and  show  us  such  a  Bias  as  should  make 

the  critic  gasp. 


ciiai'IJ-:r  x.w'i.    other  evidences. 


lU'  Evidences  I  here  mean  sometliinc^  besides  the  actual 
Authorities  for  any  given  statement,  for  which  see 
p.    139  foil. 

Supposing  that  all  English  History  Books,  up  to  to-da)\ 
had  been  burnt,  Jioio  could  we  restore  English  History  ? 

Putting  aside  the  Inscriptions  and  Documents  and 
Letters  and  other  Literary  sources,  what  would  there  be 
to  tell  us  about  the  past?  In  coaching  at  Cambridge 
I  have  often  been  surprised  at  the  ignorance  of  pupils 
as  to  what  Evidences  there  are  for  any  given  statement 
apart  from  the  actual  written  Authorities  themselves. 

I.  First  of  all  comes  Geography,  which  may  be  made 
to  include  Geology.  A  great  deal  of  our  jDast  History 
can  be  learnt  from  a  map  of  our  countr\-.  When  we 
see  the  coal-fields  and  the  mines  in  the  North  and 
West,  when  we  see  the  network  of  rivers  and  canals, 
the  neighbourhood  of  I^'rance  and  of  the  North- Western 
coast-line  of  luu'ope,  when  we  sec  how  easy  it  is  to 
get  from  England  all  over  the  world  by  various  routes, 
when  we  see  how  England,  though  far  Northwards, 
still  has  the  Gulf  Stream  to  keep  it  warm,  we  cannot 
fail  to  be  able  to  restore  a  good  deal  of  our  past. 

But,  if  we  wanted  to  look  for  remains  and  traces  of 
the  past,  whether  these  remains  be  changed  or  whether 
they  be,  as  it  were,  fossilised,  where  shall  we  be  inclined 
to  look  ? 

L  145 


146  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

2.  Religion  will  be  one  of  the  best  places.  Just 
as  one  looks  for  fossils  in  a  cliff,  so  one  looks  for 
old-fashioned  things  in  Religion.  Where  else  do  we 
find  the  language  of  l6ii  in  daily  use,  and  a  great 
deal  as  well  that  belongs  to  periods  far  earlier  than 
that  ? 

3.  Law,  again,  preserv^es  (to  the  woe  of  the  poor) 
many  traces  of  old  things,  such  as  customs  which  have 
disappeared  elsewhere. 

4.  Buildings  also  carry  us  back  a  long  way — some  of 
them,  like  Stonehenge,  to  the  very  early  times  of  our 
countr)-. 

5.  Language  and  L^hilologj  are  most  valuable  as 
Evidences.  Our  English  names  of  towns  in  -don,  -ham, 
-Chester,  -caster,  etc.,  tell  us  a  little  history  all  by  them- 
selves. They  tell  us  that  we  are  a  mixed  people,  or 
rather  that  we  owe  our  civilisation  to  many  peoples. 
Our  very  Language  itself  points  in  the  same  direction. 
See  "How  to  Learn  Philology"  (Sonnenschein  and  Co.), 

6.  And  if  we  were  to  make  Inferences  from  these  and 
man)-  other  Evidences,  as  to  what  our  past  History  had 
been,  I  thinlc  that  all  its  most  important  features  could 
easily  be  reconstructed.  We  might  not  recover  many 
names  and  dates  and  details,  and  the  inferences  would 
have  to  be  corrected,  but  anyhow  the  exercise  of 
making  them  would  be  admirable  for  the  mind. 

7.  In  one  respect,  indeed,  Evidences  apart  from 
written  Histories  would  correct  almost  every  written 
History  that  we  ha\'e.  If  we  carefully  examined  the 
shape  of  the  skulls  of  English  people  to-day,  we  should 
be  able,  in  fact  we  should  be  bound,  to  correct  the 
statement  so  common  in  History  books,  that  we  belong 
almost  entirely   to   the   Teutonic   stock.     Language   of 


OTHER  EVIDENCES  147 

course  is  no  safe  guide  here.  The  skulls  show  us 
to  be  not  only  Teutonic,  but  also  to  a  large  extent 
Celtic. 

The  great  advantage  of  studying  Evidences,  besides 
the  exercise  it  gives  for  the  mental  faculties,  espcciall)- 
that  of  drawing  inferences,  is  that  it  compels  us  to 
examine  customs,  and  the  sayings  of  high  authorities, 
both  of  which  are  apt  to  be  false  and  far  from  good 
and  true.  We  arc  apt  to  be  fettered  by  custom  and  by 
what  zvell-knoivn  people  are  pleased  to  tell  lis.  W'e  are 
apt  to  take  for  granted  that  this  must  be  best,  without 
examining  the  question  for  ourselves.  For  us,  as 
reasoning  beings,  it  is  a  serious  duty  to  examine  the 
Evidences  for  any  given  statement ;  without  such  .';n 
examination  we  are  incurring  a  heavy  responsibilitw 
Some  day  everybody  will  be  required  to  justify  him- 
self for  whatever  he  has  done,  and,  if  he  does  not  get 
into  the  habit  of  examining  Evidences,  he  will  be 
forced  to  fall  back  uj:)on  that  \-er}-  silly  reason  '  I  did 
it  because  a  great  number  of  other  people  were  doing 
it  as  well '. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  doctor.  Wh}-  does  he  recom- 
mend such-and-such  a  drug?  Because  some  high 
Authority  recommends  it,  and  because  it  is  usual  to 
recommend  it.  What  are  the  Evidences  for  its  value? 
Surely  that  is  a  far  more  important  question. 

There  is  an  extra  advantage  besides,  and  that  is  that 
the  Evidences  often  form  an  interesting  Beginning  for 
an  Essay,  or  for  a  Book,  or  for  a  Speech.  The}-  are 
seldom  given  in  such  Compositions :  in  fact,  of  the 
Essays  which  I  have  examined,  scarcely  one  out  of 
a  hundred  gives  its  Evidences.  And  yet  these  are 
undoubtcdl\-  of  very  great  interest  and  im[)t)rtance. 


148  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,  ETC. 

Besides  the  above  branches  of  Evidences  there  are 
many  others. 

8.  On  pages  279,  281,  291,  we  shall  see  that  Pai-allcls 
and  Comparisons  and  Contrasts  are  a  kind  of  Evidence. 
At  any  rate  they  suggest  things  which  might  be  true, 
and  occasionally  the}'  go  a  great  deal  further  than  that. 
If  we  find  that  similarit}'  of  appearance  is  a  bond  which 
holds  a  family  together,  we  may  conclude  that  simi- 
larity of  appearance  is  a  bond  which  may  hold  a  Nation 
together  to  some  extent,  and  even  two  Nations,  e.g. 
ourselves  and  the  Americans  or  Australians. 

9.  The  branches  of  Evidence  most  commonly  omitted 
are  the  Previous  Conditions  and  the  Subsequent  Conditions. 
Nothing  can  be  fairly  judged  without  a  consideration 
of  these  two  points.  There  never  was  a  truer  saying 
than  '  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  knoiv  tJiem  '.  And  yet 
people  ivill  not  judge  things  by  their  results.  They 
will  take  the  opinion  of  others  for  granted  and  repeat 
it  like  parrots  and  not  like  rational  and  civilised 
animals.  Before  we  dare  to  criticise  another  person, 
for  instance,  we  should  always  carefully  examine  what 
may  be  called  his  Previous  Conditions  and,  as  far  as 
we  can,  his  Subsequent  Conditions.  The  Previous 
Conditions  will  include  his  heredity  (his  parents  and 
ancestors),  and  his  environment,  that  is  to  say,  the 
circumstances  and  conditions  under  which  he  has  lived  : 
without  these,  we  cannot  form  a  true  estimate  of  the 
person  himself.  Nor  can  we  really  see  in  zvhat  direction 
he  is  tending  (which  is  vitally  important),  unless  we 
see  the  results.  This  it  is  that  makes  a  judgment  071 
something  which  is  going  on  in  our  ozvn  times  almost 
impossible.  For  we  cannot  know  it  by  its  fruits  :  its 
fruits  may  not  appear  for  twenty  years  or  more.      In 


OTHER  EVIDENCES  149 

an  estimate  of  past  heroes  or  'villains',  the  previous 
conditions  and  their  effects  upon  the  person  must  always 
be  taken  into  account  as  Evidences. 

The  subject  of  Evidences  would  form  a  good  subject 
for  a  long  book  or  series  of  books,  and  it  is  impossible 
to  treat  of  it  adequately  in  a  single  Chapter.  Here  I 
have  only  suggested  one  or  two  thoughts  out  of  some 
hundreds.  The  reader  would  do  well  to  work  it  out 
as  a  special  Essay-subject  all  by  itself.  But  just  two 
more  points  must  be  noted. 

10.  Extreme  cases  and  simple  cases  are  of  the  ver\' 
highest  value.  Buckle,  when  he  wished  to  find  the 
influences  of  Geography  on  man  and  on  History, 
started  with  such  countries  as  Egypt :  here  he  had  an 
extreme  case  and  a  simple  case.  It  was  an  exaggera- 
tion of  certain  principles,  but  it  showed  these  principles 
clearly  and  simpl}'.  This  was  far  better  than  starting 
on  a  '  complicated  '  countr}'  like  Erance. 

11.  Omissions  are  not  without  their  value.  'If  this 
had  been  so,  the  writer  would  certainly  have  men- 
tioned it'  may  often  be  a  sound  line  of  argument. 
This  is  especially  the  case,  e.g.,  where  a  writer  omits 
to  blame  someone  whom  he  elsew^here  loses  no  oppor- 
tunity of  blaming.  But,  like  so  many  other  branches 
of  Evidence,  this  is  valuable  rather  as  suggesting  or 
confirming  some  point,  than  as  actual!}-  proving  it. 


CHAPTER    XXVII.     FALLACIES  :  WITH  A  RHYME. 


The  reader  will  naturally  ask  why  I  devote  a  special 
Chapter  to  Fallacies.     There  are  several  reasons. 

1.  Fallacies  are  to  be  carefully  avoided  everywhere, 
and  they  cannot  properly  be  avoided  unless  their  nature 
and  their  causes  are  first  seen.  One  must  learn  to 
detect  Fallacies  in  others  as  well  as  in  oneself. 

2.  The  detection  of  Fallacies  and  the  study  of  Falla- 
cies is  very  good  exercise,  not  only  for  the  reasoning 
faculty,  but  also  for  what  we  may  call  honesty  and 
open-mindedness,  and  even  for  Progress  itself  The 
opposite  of  a  Fallacy  may  often  be  considered  as  Bias, 
and  Bias  is  very  frequently  in  favour  of  custom.  It 
assumes  that  what  is  customary  is  best,  and  it  opposes 
any  and  every  change. 

3.  For  Literary  purposes  there  is  no  better  Beginning 
to  an  Essay  than  the  exposing  of  a  P^allacy.  The 
instance  from  the  New  Testament  (p.  211)  shows  this, 
and  Guizot  in  his  "  History  of  Civilization  "  shows  it  also. 
That  book  has  a  model  Beginning. 

One  of  the  reasons  for  this  is  that  everybody  likes 
to  hear  others  criticised  or  to  criticise  others  for  himself. 
It  interests  the  reader  to  expose  a  Fallacy,  and  it  pre- 
pares the  ground  very  well  for  what  you  consider  to  be 
the  true  view  of  the  subject.  Before  you  say  what  a 
thing  is,  you  often  make  }our  task  and  your  reader's 
task  easier  if  you  say  what  it  is  not.  In  fact  very  often 
one  can  go  little  further  in  a  subject  than  to  expose  the 
P\illacies.    One  may  not  like  to  venture  on  many  positive 

opinions. 

150 


FAf.LAClES  151 

I  have  collected  here  one  or  two  Fallacies  from  a 
book  which  had  a  larq,"c  sale  at  one  time,  namely  "John 
Hull  and  his  Island",  b\-  Max  O'Rell.  The  reader 
should  take  the  words  and  find  out  where  the  Fallacies 
lie,  and  should  then  classify  tiie  Fallacies  for  himself 
He  might  compare  his  results  with  mine  and  accept 
whichexer  he  thinks  the  more  reasonable. 

The  references  are  to  tlic  pages  of  the  reply  l:iy  "John  lUill  to 
Max  O'Rell"  (Wyman  and  Sons). 

1.  "John  Bull  has  muscular  arms,  long,  broad,  flat,  and  very 
heavy  feet,  and  an  iron  jaw  that  holds  fast  whatever  it  seizes 
upon."  (17) 

2.  "  A  head-master  knows  personally  every  pupil."  (78) 

3.  "  In  England  an  intelligent  boy  costs  his  parents  nothing  to 
educate."  (78) 

4.  "  Football  is  a  wild  game,  fit  for  savages."  (78) 

5.  "  Summer  and  winter,  the  Englishwoman  takes  a  cold  bath 
every  morning."  (22) 

6.  "The  aristocracy,  the  upper  and  middle  lower  classes  all  go 
to  church  or  chapel  ;  the  lower  classes  go  to  the  tavern  and  get 
drunk."  (39) 

7.  "The  French  workman  is  an  artist  in  his  way;  the  work 
of  the  English  artisan  is  purely  manual,  and  he  only  turns  out 
substantial  things."  (93) 

I,  2,  3,  and  4  are  Fallacies  because  they  seize  on  one  part  or 
set  of  instances,  and  ignore  or  omit  other  parts.  They  generalise 
without  consulting  the  Law  of  Averages  (p.  157).  4  especially  is 
a  Fallacy  due  to  judging  by  appearances  (p.  155).  It  obviously 
is  not  by  a  man  who  has  played  the  game  hundreds  of  times  with 
gentlemen. 

5  dike  some  of  the  above)  seems  to  be  due  chiefly  to  bad 
E\idence  :  though  it  is  like  i,  2,  3,  and  4  also.  The  part  here 
is  a  very  exceptional  part. 

6.  Here  also  a  very  exceptional  part  is  chosen,  and  the  Evidence 
(esp.  as  to  the  Public  Houses)  is  partly  to  blame. 

7.  Shows  National  Bias,  though  it  contains  a  germ  of  truth.  It 
also  generalises  by  one  part,  and  ignores  and  omits  the  other 
parts. 


152  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

For  the  purpose  of  criticism,  he  need  not  here  trouble 
as  to  whether  the  Fallacies  were  intentional  or  un- 
intentional. He  may  even  assume  that  they  \\ere 
unintentional  and  due  to  ignorance  or  carelessness  :  that 
is  the  more  charitable  view.  It  does  not  matter  much, 
for  our  present  purpose,  whether  the  writer  was  himself 
deceived  or  whether  he  intended  to  deceive  others. 

Putting  aside  actual  mistakes,  we  may  mention  a  few 
Fallacies  which  are  exceptionally  connnon,  leaving  the 
reader  for  the  most  part  to  think  of  his  own  instances. 

He  will  find  that  most  Fallacies  are  Fallacies  of 
Omission.  The  mistake  is  generally  that  something 
of  importance  is  omitted. 

Let  us  take,  to  start  with,  a  Proverb,  "Take  care 
of  the  pence  and  the  pounds  will  take  care  of  them- 
selves." Everyone  knows  that  there  are  hundreds  of 
cases  where  this  does  not  apply  at  all,  where  the  person 
takes  care  of  the  pence  and  the  pounds  do  not  take 
care  of  themselves  (except  in  the  sense  of  keeping  clear 
of  the  '  economiser ').  The  Fallacy  here  is  that  some- 
thing is  omitted;  and  the  omission  would  be — 'Take 
care  of  the  pence,  if  it  is  economy  to  do  so '.  In  the 
same  way,  it  is  not  always  really  true  that  '  A  penny 
saved  is  a  penny  gained '.  Something  may  be  omitted. 
I  have  known  cases  where  a  penny  saved  has  been  five 
shillings  lost.  The  omission  may  be  similar  to  the 
above :  some  other  point  of  view  has  been  unknown 
or  else  ignored. 

Supposing,  now,  we  take  that  very  common  F'allacy, 
the  Fallacy  of  trusting  to  Authority,  perhaps  to  a  very 
high  Authority  :  why  should  it  be  wrong  to  assum.e 
that  'a  thing  must  really  be  so,  because  A  has  said 
that  it  is  so.'     Well,  here  one  omits  the  fact  that  the 


FALLACIES  153 

Autliority  may  have  made  a  mistake  and  that  other 
Authorities  who  are  equally  reliable  may  hold  different 
opinions,  and  that  anyhow  everybody  has  a  right  to  his 
own  opinion  and  is  not  forced  to  admit  the  \\\\\vg  merely 
because  A  says  that  it  is  the  case. 

Let  us  take  the  most  terrible  Fallacy  of  all  the 
Fallacies,  that  what  is  aestoinary  is  therefore  best. 
How  often  we  hear  people  say  "It  is  wrong  to  do  that", 
or  "  It  is  right  to  do  that",  and  then  give  as  their  only 
reason,  for  its  being  wrong,  that  most  people  don't  do 
it,  and,  for  its  being  right,  that  most  people  do  do  it.  The 
fact  is  that  something  is  omitted  here,  and  the  chief 
Omission  is  the  future.  The  person  who  saj-s  that 
what  is  customary  is  best  omits  to  consider  that  the 
future,  sa\-  in  another  thousand  )-ears,  ma\-  be  an 
improvement.  Custom  may  alter.  Now  if  tlie  custom 
in  a  thousand  \-ears'  time  will  be  better  than  the  custom 
now,  as  we  hope  it  will  be,  then  the  custom  now  may 
not  be  best :  it  may  be  even  execrable.  It  also  omits 
the  consideration  of  the  past.  People  have  ahvaj's  said 
that  custom  is  the  best,  and  )-et  in  the  past  we  have 
seen  many  changes.  Each  state  of  things  was  considered 
best  until  something  new  had  been  tried.  This  was 
nearly  always  at  first  considered  as  bad,  }-et  it  made  its 
way  and  is  now  received  into  the  sanctuary  of  custom. 

Very  like  this  is  the  Fallacy  due  to  Bias.  A  person 
will  not  look  at  a  thing  from  any  point  of  view  but  one. 
Read  man\-  English  Flistories  and  see  liow  the  English 
are  always  in  the  right,  howe\er  wrong  the}"  may  be. 
Then  read  a  French  History  and  see  how  the  French 
are  always  in  the  right  I  What  has  been  omitted  here .' 
Surely  the  point  of  viev.'  of  the  other  side.  The  truth 
undoubtedly  lies  as  a  rule  somewhere  between  the  two 


154  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

extremes.  Bias  to  a  certain  extent  is  inevitable,  but  it  is 
a  great  thing  to  get  into  the  habit  of  detecting  it  and  of 
seeing  that  other  people  regard  things  from  quite  different 
points  of  view.  Read  the  speech  of  Demosthenes  and 
the  speech  of  Aeschines  on  the  Crown  :  each  seems  to 
be  speaking  the  truth,  and  \-et  the  orators  are  per- 
petually contradicting  one  another.  Perhaps  a  third 
orator  might  have  described  the  same  incidents  from  a 
third  point  of  view.  /\ll  three  would  have  been  liable 
to  fall  into  Fallacies. 

The  Fallacy  of  fixing  the  attention  on  one  part,  and 
of  ignoring  the  other  parts,  is  one  of  the  commonest  that 
we  have  to  be  on  our  guard  against.  We  shall  see 
below  that,  when  writers  tell  us  that  the  Athenians  were 
highly  civilised,  they  omit  a  great  deal — they  omit,  in 
fact,  two  parts  of  the  State  which  were  not  prominent, 
but  extraordinarily  large,  so  much  so  that  they  were  far 
larger  than  the  mass  of  Athenian  citizens  themselves. 
The  reader  will  guess  that  these  two  parts  of  the  State, 
which  frequently  were  scarcely  at  all  educated,  were  the 
women  and  the  slaves.  To  fix  the  attention  on  one 
part  and  to  ignore  the  parts  which  are  less  prominent 
is  one  of  the  grossest  P'allacies  of  all.  It  might  surprise 
the  reader  if  one  called  into  question  the  statement  that 
England  is  a  prosperous  country:  he  would  immediately 
say  '  Look  at  the  amount  of  money  that  Englishmen 
possess,  look  at  her  position,  and  her  merchants,  and 
look  at  her  possessions  abroad  1 '  These  however  arc 
only  parts.  I  have  a  perfect  right  to  call  attention  to 
other  parts.  In  fact  I  insist  on  doing  so,  and  I  might 
just  as  well  judge  her  by  the  wretched  millions  in  the 
cities.  After  all,  they  form  a  very  great  part  of  England. 
So,  before  we  decide,  we  must  consider  not  one  part  only, 
but  every  part. 


FALLACIES  155 

One  part  on  which  the  attention  is  very  commonly 
fixed  and  concentrated  is  the  appearance.  It  is  a  great 
Fallacy  to  judge  that  a  man  is  strong  and  healthy 
because  he  looks  strong  and  healthy.  For  instance,  a 
man  may  have  a  big  chest  and  may  appear,  for  this 
reason,  to  be  very  powerful.  But  when  one  finds  that 
this  chest  is  in  a  bad  state,  and  cannot  contract  or 
expand  much,  one  sees  that  the  appearance  was  in  this 
case  deceptive. 

Fallacies  about  causes  are  also  common.  To  fix  the 
attention  on  one  cause  and  to  ignore  the  others  is  again 
a  Fallacy  of  Omission.  W'c  read  in  Histories  how  one 
great  event  was  due  to  a  glass  of  water,  another  to  a 
jjetty  quarrel  about  a  woman,  and  so  on.  Now  all 
these  were  causes,  it  is  true,  but  they  were  not  the  full 
causes,  they  were  only  a  part  of  them.  It  is  especially 
common  to  give  the  hnmediate  cause.  For  instance, 
how  often  one  hears  that  "  The  open  window  gave  me  a 
chill " — it  may  have  been  an  open  window  that  was  the 
immediate  cause,  but  it  does  not  in  the  least  follow  that 
it  was  the  full  cause.  Tliere  may  have  been  many 
factors  without  which  the  open  window  would  have 
produced  no  such  result. 

And  similarly  with  regard  to  inoiives.  Now  little 
account  is  taken  of  the  number  of  motives  which  may 
induce  a  person  to  do  a  thing,  and  the  changes  which 
may  take  place  in  these  motives  as  the  person  is  in  the 
course  of  doing  the  thing  (see  p.  108}.  The  writer  is 
generally  content  to  fix  on  one  motive  and  to  give  it  as 
practically  the  only  one. 

And,  as  people  make  mistakes  about  causes,  so  they 
make  almost  equally  serious  mistakes  about  hindrances: 
they  even  omit  them  altogether.    They  condemn  a  man, 


156  IDEAS:    IIOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

for  instance,  because  he  is  a  drunkard  ;  they  omit  the 
fact  that  his  temperance  was  terribly  hindered  and 
handicapped  by  licrcdity,  and  by  unwholesome  surround- 
ings and  temptations.  If  they  did  not  omit  this,  they 
would  scarcely  condemn  as  unsparingly  as  they  do. 

Once  again,  \\\\.\\  regard  to  rcsjilts :  a  man,  let  us 
say,  is  guilty  of  excesses  in  eating  and  in  drinking,  and 
he  keeps  this  up  for  five  years.  He  says,  '  They  are  not 
affecting  my  health  '.  The  Fallacy  here  is  that  he  omits 
the  future.  Look  at  him  in  another  twenty  years' 
time,  and  then  you  may  see  where  the  Fallacy  lies.  He 
has  been  fixing  his  attention  on  only  a  part  of  the  time 
during  which  the  result  would  appear.  Here  again  people 
are  apt  to  judge  too  much  by  the  immediate  results. 

Another  Fallacy  would  be  where  people  make  a 
wrong  ijifercnce.  I  once  read  that  "  Reasoning  cannot 
be  taught ",  The  reader  might  do  well  to  see  where  the 
Fallacy  lies  here,  and  he  will  do  so  best,  I  think,  if  he 
turns  this  into  the  personal  form  (see  p.  233),  asking 
himself  "Who  does  what?"  At  first  the  answer  is 
not  obvious,  but  after  a  time  it  appears  to  be  as 
follows.  The  person  who  made  the  above  statement, 
that  "Reasoning  cannot  be  taught",  should  have  said 
"  I  myself  and  others  have  not  been  able  to  teach 
reasoning  ;  therefore  we  conclude  that  reasoning 
cannot  be  taught  at  all  ",  The  F'allacy  was  that  this 
person  omitted  the  possibility  that  someone  in  the  future, 
someone  who  should  be  even  wiser  than  himself,  would 
ha\e  the  power  of  teaching  reasoning.  Because  he 
and  others  had  failed,  it  did  not  follow  that  everyone 
else  in  the  whole  future  would  be  certain  to  fail  also. 

When  once  we  come  to  details,  Fallacies  are  legion, 
The  Fallacy,  for  instance,  that  it  is  a  mistake  to  explain 


FALLACIES  157 

things  to  people,  and  that  they  should  be  left  to  find 
out  everything  for  themselves,  is  not  uncommon.  Here, 
what  has  been  omitted  is  that  many  people  are  not 
trained  to  find  out  things  for  themselves,  and  it  does 
not  occur  to  them  to  do  so ;  and  unless  the)'  have  been 
trained  in  this,  or  even  actuall)'  told  to  do  it,  they  will 
not  do  it  for  themselves.  Of  all  the  Fallacies  which 
are  worth  working  out,  possibl)'  the  one  I  mentioned, 
name]}',  that  Athenians  were  highly  educated,  would 
be  the  most  instructive,  for  it  is  an  offence  against  what 
may  be  called  the  Law  of  Averages.  The  speaker 
fixes  his  attention  on  the  people  who  lived  in  some 
parts  of  Athens,  the  better  classes,  and  who  lived  there 
at  one  period,  as  opposed  to  the  early  Athenians  who 
were  not  ver}'  highly  educated,  and  the  later  Athenians 
who  were  perhaps,  if  the  expression  may  be  pardoned, 
too  highl}'  educated  to  be  really  educated.  They  ignored 
those  who  were  in  other  parts  of  Athens  and  Attica, 
and  who  lived  at  other  times.  They  did  not  take  an 
average  before  they  made  their  statements.  And  the 
same  applies  to  the  statement  that  England  is  a 
prosperous  nation.  Let  the  reader  now,  in  conclusion, 
examine  the  statement  that  England  owes  this  pros- 
perity entirely  to  beef  and  beer,  for  it  is  a  good  type 
of  a  Fallac}-. 

I  have  only  given  a  very  few  examples  and  general 
principles  here,  and  space  forbids  me  to  add  anything  ; 
but  the  reader  will  find  it  worth  while  to  make  a  special 
study  of  Fallacies  and  their  detection.  He  might  take 
one  of  the  Daily  Papers  (I  will  not  give  a  list),  and 
run  through  it,  mentioning  and  classifying  the  various 
Fallacies  which  it  contains.  It  would  be  a  good  morn- 
ine's  work. 


158  IDEAS:    HOW   TO    COLLECT,   ETC. 


The   following  Rhyme  may  be  of  use,  as  including 
many  kinds  of  Fallacies. 

It's  Fallacy  to  judge  by  one  sole  standard,  (and  neglect 
time,  place,  conditions,  causes,  aims,  the  tendency,  the 

effect). 
It 's  Fallacy  to  treat  the  outward  semblance  as  the  soul, 
number  and  size  as  proofs  of  great  importance,  part  as 

whole, 
y\uthority  as  truth,  and  custom  as  the  best  of  all  ; 
things  done  as  things  done  purposely,  one  cause  (how- 
ever small) 
or  a   circumstance   or   hindrance   as   the  one  and  only 

source  ; 
some  one  man's  act  as  a  Nation's  act  (and  the  converse 

too,  of  course)  ; 
the  immediate  as  the  full  effect ;  one  meaning  of  a  word 
as  another  ;  or  to  base  remarks  on  j)remisses  absurd  : 
false  Deduction,  false   Induction  (like  the  pyramid  re- 
versed), 
have  many  different  aspects,  and   I   know  not  which  is 

worst. 
Bias  may  be  for  self  alone,  or  family,  or  friends, 
or  for  a  group  in  politics  or  for  religious  ends 
or  other  ends,  or  else  for  State  or  Nation  as  a  whole  : 
and  '  Bias— y^?;''  will  also  be  against  the  other  pole. 


CIIAPTI'.R    XXVIII.     DEFINITIONS. 


1\Iax\'  Writers  and  Speakers  rush  straii^^lit  a\va\'  into 
tlieir  subject  without  an\'  Definition  at  all,  and  hence 
tliere  are  apt  to  be  obscurities  and  misunderstandings. 
If  we  examine  a  discussion  in  a  Paper  or  Review,  we 
generally  find  that  one  cause  of  the  quarrelling  is  that 
neither  Writer  has  defined  his  subject,  or  else  that  the 
one  Writer  uses  a  certain  word  or  words  in  one  sense 
while  the  other  Writer  uses  them  in  another  sense.  For 
Political  arguments  Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis'  work 
has  done  much  to  remove  misapprehensions.  I  remem- 
ber hearing  one  discussion  on  Religion  :  both  parties 
were  in  a  furious  temper,  and,  though  I  did  not  see  the 
reason  at  the  time,  it  occurred  to  me  afterwards  that 
by  Religion  one  of  them  meant  superstition  and  mean- 
ingless ceremonies,  whereas  the  other  meant  a  following 
of  conscience  and  an  attem[)t  to  lead  the  highest 
possible  life.  On  thinking  o\'er  their  arguments  I 
found  that  neither  part\-  really  disagreed  with  the  other 
on  any  important  point. 

Supposing  the  subject  is  '  Democrac)- ',  it  is  essential 
to  define  'Democracy'.  Is  it  to  mean  what  zue  call 
Democrac}',  that  is  to  say,  is  it  to  mean  a  Government 
by  those  rich  men  who  are  chosen  by  the  whole  popula- 
tion of  householders  ? 

Again,  when  it  is  '  PVeedom  '  that  we  are  considering, 
is  it  P'^rcedom  from  legal  justice,  or  P>eedom  from  what? 

1.   It   is  often    necessary,  in    defining   terms,  to   take 

«5y 


i6o  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

the  Period- Headings  and  apply  ihcm  ;  e.g.  they  would 
help  a  good  deal  toward.s  a  Definition  of  Freedom,  by 
showing  in  what  spheres  the  Freedom  is  to  be  found. 

2.  If  we  look  at  a  statement  like  this  :  "The  art  of 
Essay-Writing  cannot  be  taught ",  we  must  define  what 
is  meant  by  this.  Docs  it  mean  the  power  of  writing 
Essays  perfectly  or  the  power  of  writing  them  better 
than  we  wrote  them  previously?  Now  a  great  help 
towards  a  Definition  and  indeed,  as  we  shall  see, 
towards  Clearness  in  general,  is  the  use  of  a  personal 
and  Concrete  form,  in  answer  to  the  questions  (p.  233), 
"  WJio  does  Wliat,  etc  ? "  The  New  Testament  is  con- 
spicuous for  this  personal  expression,  whereas  many 
treatises  on  Ethics  and  Religion  are  one  mass  of  abstract 
terms. 

3.  Instances  also  help  the  Definition  considerably. 
If  we  are  asked  for  an  Essay  on  Tyrants  (see  p.  54),  we 
must  think  of  Instances  of  Tyrants  :  e.g.  Phalaris  was  a 
General  before  he  became  a  Tyrant,  and  as  a  Tyrant 
he  was  said  to  be  cruel ;  Pisistratus  was  popular 
among  the  poor,  while  he  himself  was  rich.  The 
Instances  must  be  collected  from  every  place  and 
every  time,  and  Parallels  must  be  included.  Thus, 
besides  Greek  Tyrants,  one  might  mention  the  Czar  of 
Russia,  or  Napoleon. 

4.  Comparisons  (see  p.  281)  may  help  a  good  deal,  and 
Contrasts  also.  For  example,  we  cannot  well  define 
'  Freedom  '  until  we  know  what  it  is  to  be  contrasted 
with,  whether  it  is  to  be  slavery  or  something  else. 

5.  Buckle,  in  his  "History  of  Civilisation  in  England", 
arrives  at  some  Definitions  by  taking  Exaggerated  and 
Extreme  cases,  see  p.  149.  By  this  means  he  saw  some 
one  aspect  by  itself  and  saw  this  very  clearly. 


DEFIXITIONS  i6i 

6.  Besides  this,  Questions  (cf.  above)  arc  of  very 
great  value ;  and  Definitions  should  be  tried  experi- 
mentally. Guizot,  in  defining  Civilisation,  asked  a 
number  of  Questions,  and  tried  various  answers  :  Was 
it  this  .  .  .,  or  that  .  .  .,  or  that  .  .  .  ? 

7.  This  might  also  be  called  the  process  of  Exclud- 
ing. One  excludes  whatever  is  not  really  essential  to 
the  idea.  For  instance,  Phalaris  was  said  to  have 
burnt  people  in  a  brazen  bull,  but  the  brazen  bull  was 
not  essential  here;  the  essential  point  was  e.g.  the  cruelty. 
To  arrive  at  a  Definition,  one  should  find  out  first  of 
all  what  is  common  to  all  the  Instances,  then  what  is 
common  to  many  of  them,  and  then  what  is  common 
only  to  a  few,  and  lastly  what  is  incidental  or  excep- 
tional. By  this  means  one  can  make  up  a  general  kind 
of  Forninla*  For  instance,  Tyrants  were  absolute  rulers : 
in  Greece  Tyrants  generally  ruled  only  for  a  short  time, 
they  spent  a  great  deal  of  money,  they  put  down  the 
oppression  of  the  Nobles  and  raised  up  the  oppressed 
Commons,  and  united  the  whole  State  together.  The 
Tyrant  also  was  outside  the  Laws  of  the  State  and 
unprotected  by  them.  He  usually  had  to  rely  on 
military  force. 

8.  Last  of  all,  it  is  only  fair  to  give  the  viezvs  of  others. 
We  have  to  decide,  it  is  true,  on  some  single  Definition, 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  we  must  mention  the  fact  that 
others  may  not  accept  this  Definition  when  they  use  the 
same  word  :  they  may  use  it  in  quite  a  different  sense. 

And,  having  made  our  Definition,  we  must  be  very 
careful  to  keep  to  it  throughout :  not  to  use  a  word 
now  in  one  sense  and  now  in  another.  This  is  the 
commonest  trick  of  dishonest  Speakers  and  Writers 
and  the  one  to  be  most  conscientiously  avoided. 

*  We  often  have  to  be  content  (see  p.  222)  with  certain  features  ivhich 
the  given  Idea  viust  contain. 


CHAPTER    XXIX.     PARALLELS,    COMPARISONS, 
AND    CONTRASTS. 

(See  Chapters  LI.-LIII.) 


I  HAVE  treated  Parallels,  Comparisons,  and  Contrasts, 
under  the  heading  of  the  Expression  of  Ideas,  as  I  have 
considered  their  chief  functions  to  be  (see  p.  281  foil.) 
to  make  Ideas  clear,  interesting,  and  suggestive,  and 
— if  necessary — to  emphasise  Ideas. 

Nevertheless,  Comparisons  and  Contrasts  are  (or 
should  be)  by  no  means  confined  to  these  functions  : 
still  less  are  they,  as  some  seem  to  think,  mere 
'Rhetorical  Tricks'.  They  are  also  valuable  in  the 
Collection  of  the  Ideas  themselves  :  in  fact  (see  pp.  286, 
293)  they  are  almost  certain  to  bring  to  light  Ideas 
which  might  otherwise  have  escaped  notice  altogether. 

In  a  word,  I  do  not  think  that  the  Ideas  can  be 
adequately  Collected  without  the  aid  of  Comparisons 
and  Contrasts :  I  consider  them  an  integral  part  of  the 
Scheme  of  an  Essay  or  Speech,  before  we  have  yet 
come  to  the  Expression  of  Ideas.  A  Scheme  with  bare 
Ideas,  unillustrated  and  uncontrasted,  I  should  regard 
as  an  incomplete  Scheme. 

But,  for  the  sake  of  convenience,  I  have  treated  the 
two  aspects  of  Comparisons  and  Contrasts  (viz.  as 
affecting  the  Collection,  etc.,  of  Ideas,  and  as  affecting 
the  Expression  of  Ideas)  in  single  Chapters,  in  the 
Third  Part  of  this  Book. 


162 


CHAPTER    XXX.     QUOTATIONS. 


Some  Books,  such  as  Sir  John  Lubbock's  "  Pleasures 
of  Life",  simply  teem  with  Quotations:  and,  as  the 
book  is  apparently  written  for  the  People  as  well  as 
for  the  cultured  Few,  this  may  be  quite  sound.  For 
the  People  love  and  respect  Quotations  from  Author- 
ities, somewhat  as  they  love  personalities  about  great 
or  famous  men  and  women,  however  trivial  these 
personalities  may  appear.  And  the  People  respect 
Texts,  even  Texts  which  are  pulled  out  from  their 
context  like  pieces  of  Mosaic  pulled  out  from  their 
pattern. 

But  this  must  be  said  on  the  other  side.     Quotations 
often  are  a  pandcrini;"  to  the  taste  of  the  People,  ot 
forcing    upon    them    of    words    which    may    be    very 
rhythmical    and    high-sounding,    but    which    are    often 
ill-understood  or  even  misinterpreted. 

The  whole  question  of  the  use  of  Quotations  is  one 
well  worth  a  special  treatise :  only  a  few  of  its  many 
sides  can  be  touched  on  here. 

First  of  all,  as  to  the  Quotation  of  actual  words. 

Quotations  of  Poetry  should  of  course  be  given 
word  for  word,  but  opinions  differ  as  to  Prose  Quota- 
tions. There  are  many  who  say  that  they  also  should 
be  given  word  for  word, 

A  very  great  deal  must  depend  on  how  far  the  Ideas 
are  well  and  clearly  expressed  in  the  Quotation.  It 
would    seldom    be    a    good    thing    to    quote    Herbert 

1 03 


1 64  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,  ETC 

Spencer  word  for  word,  for,  among  other  things,  his* 
English  is  seldom  clear  to  an  average  reader. 

Besides  this,  it  is  hard  to  remember  Quotations  word 
for  word,  and  there  have  been  many  who  have  learned 
such  Quotations  and  who  now  think  of  the  words 
rather  than  the  sense  :  they  repeat  them  as  a  parrot 
might,  and  not  with  understanding.  This  may  be 
(see  p.  87)  chiefly  the  fault  of  the  way  of  learning  the 
Quotation. 

Nevertheless,  there  must  be  many  Prose  Quotations 
which  must  be  quoted  absolutely  as  they  are  in  the 
original. 

Those  who  are  against  such  Quoting  say  that  you 
ought  rather  to  get  hold  of  the  underlying  Idea  and 
express  it  in  your  own  way  :  the  Idea  then  will  not  be 
your  own  original  Idea,  but  will  be  the  next  best  thing 
to  it.  At  any  rate  you  will  be  sure  to  have  made  it  your 
own  before  you  offer  it  to  the  reader ;  whereas,  if  you 
quote  the  exact  words,  there  is  little  guarantee  that  you 
have  understood  the  sense,  or  that  the  reader  or  hearer 
will  understand  it. 

This  applies  in  particular  to  foreign  Quotations. 
These  should  nearly  always  be  translated,  unless  they 
be  for  learned  Readers  only.  The  number  of  such 
Quotations  which  average  people  can  understand  is 
very  very  small,  and  a  translation  which  gives  the 
sense  is  generally  much  better  than  the  original  words. 
In  our  ordinary  Classical  teaching  at  Public  Schools  and 
at  Cambridge,  I  have  found  by  experience  that  almost 
the  whole  of  the  attention  is  given  to  tJie  words  and 
Language,  and  that  the  learners  go  away  from  School 
or  from  Cambridge  with  the  very  vaguest  notion  as  to 
the  Ideas  themselves.     I  believe  that  the  Classics  would 


QUOTATIONS  165 

teach  them  far  more  if,  throughout  Schools  and  the 
Universities,  they  were  studied  in  good  English  Trans- 
lations at  any  rate  to  begin  with ;  but  this  is  by  the 
way. 

A  few  poetical  Quotations  are  extremely  good  for 
both  Books  and  Essays  and  Speeches :  many  from 
Shakespeare,  and  some  from  Cowper  and  Tennyson, 
for  example,  may  be  used  again  and  again  and  again. 
It  is  worth  while  to  buy  a  good  book  of  Selections  from 
the  Poets,  and  to  learn  once  for  all  (see  p.  88)  a  few 
of  these  which  seem  most  likely  to  be  of  use  in  Essay- 
Writing  or  Speaking.  A  friend  of  mine  had  one 
Quotation  from  Tennyson,  and  he  (of  course  exaggerat- 
ingly)  said  he  would  defy  anybody  to  give  him  the 
Essay-subject  into  which  he  could  not  introduce  that 
Quotation. 


CHAPTER   XXXI.     HOW   TO    SELECT 

AND    REJECT   HEADINGS 
(UNITY,  ETC.). 


Neither  In  the  Collection  of  Headings,  nor  in  this 
department,  the  Selection  and  Rejection  of  Headings, 
should  there  be  any  thought  as  to  how  these  Headings 
are  to  be  Arranged,  or  how  they  are  to  be  Expressed. 
The  attention  vuist  be  concentrated  on  the  question, 
'  Which  Headings,  if  any,  are  to  be  rejected  ? ' 

A  great  deal  will  depend  upon  the  readers  or 
hearers  whom  one  is  addressing,  the  chief  principle 
being  Appropriateness.  It  is  not  enough  that  a  Head- 
ing should  have  something  to  do  with  the  subject,  but 
it  must  be  appropriate  to  the  particular  readers  or 
hearers,  and  to  the  particular  object  and  aim  which  one 
has  in  view. 

Another  principle  is  Economy.  It  is  a  pity  to  waste 
time  and  attention  on  certain  Headings  and  Sub- Head- 
ings, when  that  attention  had  better  be  given  to  com- 
paratively few  but  vital  points.  This  is  particularly  the 
case  (see  p.  19)  with  Sj^eeches. 

This  does  not  mean  that  every  detail  should  be 
rejected,  but  (see  p.  216)  it  means  that  you  should 
reject  only  those  details  which  do  not  throw  light  on, 
or  emphasise,  the  main  point. 

One  or  two  further  considerations  are  worth  noticing. 
First  of  all,  whether  you  think  a  Heading  is  worth 
putting  in  or  not  must  be  a  matter  of  personal  opinion 

166 


HO IV  TO   SELECT  AA'D   REJECT  HEADINGS     167 

and  taste ;  and  tliis  is  one  of  the  occasions  where 
Origi)uility  comes  in  :  you  will  have  to  judge  for  your- 
self, though  of  course  you  may  do  well  to  ask  for 
advice. 

Secondly,  it  may  be  right  to  adopt  certain  Headings 
of  which  the  importance  is  not  quite  obvious  \.o  yoii : 
every  year  people  are  finding  out  that  something,  which 
used  to  be  neglected,  was  really  worth  taking  into 
account ;  the  interest  of  the  thing  is  at  length  dis- 
covered. Hence  there  are  some  points  which  may  have 
to  be  inserted  in  Essays  of  certain  types,  even  if  you 
cannot  yet  say  that  these  points  are  important  or  even 
interesting.  You  can  easily  add  a  note  to  the  effect 
that  they  Diay  prove  important  and  interesting  some 
day. 

Headings  may  be  rejected,  then,  partly  because 
they  are  inappropriate  to  the  reader,  considering  the 
object  which  one  has  in  view.  This  of  course  will 
include  the  rejection  of  Headings  which  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  actual  subject. 

Headings  may  also  be  rejected  because,  if  they 
were  to  be  put  in,  they  would  make  the  Essay  or 
Speech  too  long  ;  they  might  be  interesting  but  they 
would  tend  to  distract  the  attention. 

Other  Headings  may  be  rejected  because  they  are 
untrue  or  unfair,  although  to  vieNtion  an  unfair  argu- 
ment, if  you  also  say  zvliy  it  is  in  fair,  is  often  the  very 
best  way  of  dealing  with  it — far  better  than  omitting 
it  altogether. 

Other  Headings  can  be  omitted  or  should  be  omitted, 
either  because  they  are  luihealth}-,  using  the  word  in  a 
wide  sense,  or  else  because  they  are  unkind  or  apt  to 
hurt  people's  feelings.     On  the  other  hand  there  is  in 


1 68  IDEAS:    HO]V  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

England  a  great  deal  too  much  prudery  about  men- 
tioning subjects  which  are  some  of  the  most  important 
in  life,  and  there  is  a  great  deal  of  misguided  'charity' 
which  shrinks  from  mentioning  things  for  fear  of 
offending  someone  or  other,  and  probably  for  fear  of 
some  personal  loss.  The  motive  may  seem  excellent, 
but  the  effect  may  be  exactly  like  that  of  never  cor- 
recting the  faults  of  children. 

As  helps  towards  rejecting  Headings,  the  Aim  and 
the  readers  should  constantly  be  kept  in  view ;  and 
there  is  something  to  be  said  for  the  plan  of  writing 
the  end  of  the  Essay  before  one  does  anything  else,  if  by 
this  means  the  goal  will  be  kept  in  view  throughout. 

Two  or  three  Exercises  may  be  suggested  as  practice 
here. 

1.  Eirst  of  all,  take  your  own  Composition,  or  any 
other,  and,  after  you  have  got  the  Scheme  or  Analysis 
of  it,  cut  out  whatever  you  consider  to  be  inappropriate, 
etc.  Of  course  it  is  very  hard  to  cut  out  some  Idea 
which  you  wish  to  air,  for  instance  some  interesting 
suggestion.  And  there  is  scarcely  any  learned  man 
who  has  not  spoilt  many  of  his  Books  or  Articles  or 
Speeches,  or  some  of  them,  by  masses  and  masses 
of  information  which  may  be  interesting  in  itself  but 
is  not  appropriate,  either  to  the  aim  or  object  in  view, 
or  to  the  readers.  To  take  an  instance,  Commentaries 
on  the  Classics  or  on  Ancient  History  should  be  studied 
from  this  point  of  view  :  they  contain  folios  of  such 
learning  as  is  singularly  out  of  place  just  where  it  is, 
e.g.  in  School-books,  however  accurate  it  ma}'  be,  and 
however  interesting,  for  other  purposes. 

2.  Another  Exercise  is  to  '■mark'  the  Ideas  according 
to    their   importance,    for    instance,   to   give    the    most 


HOW   TO   SELECT  AND   REJECT  HEADINGS     169 

important  Ideas  ten  marks  and  the  least  important 
one  mark  or  none  at  alk  See  further  the  following 
Chapter. 

3.  But  a  still  better  Exercise  perhaps  is  to  take  great 
Orators  and  Writers,  and  to  make  an  Analysis  or 
Scheme  of  their  Ideas,  and  then  to  see  how  much 
they  have  rejected.  You  will  find  plenty  of  facts 
and  plenty  of  arguments  which  might  have  been  in- 
serted, e.g.  in  a  speech  of  Demosthenes.  But  now 
you  can  ask  yourself  whether  the  omitted  things  were 
omitted  because  they  were  not  appropriate  to  the 
readers  or  audience,  or  to  the  Aim  of  the  Author  or 
Speaker,  or  whether  they  were  not  put  in  because  they 
never  occurred  to  the  Author  at  all.  This  will  lead 
you  to  think  over  the  reasons  for  Selecting  and  Reject- 
ing Ideas. 

In  my  own  opinion  the  Rejecting  of  Ideas  is  the 
hardest  part  of  Essay-Writing :  it  needs  tremendous 
self-control  and  self-sacrifice ,  and  it  cannot  but  have  a 
powerful  effect  on  the  character.  To  be  able  to  say 
to  oneself,  '  Such-and-such  a  Heading  will  interest  the 
readers,  but  I  must  reject  it  because  it  has  nothing 
to  do  with  my  present  Aim',  and  actually  to  reject  it, 
not  only  needs  very  great  self-control  at  the  moment, 
but  must  be  most  excellent  self-discipline  for  the  whole 
of  life. 


CHAPTER    XXXII.     HOW   TO   PROPORTION   AND 

UNDERLINE  THE  HEADINGS. 


When  the  Ideas  have  been  Collected  and  Selected, 
then  the  Writer  or  Speaker  must  concentrate  his 
attention  on  Underlining  those  Ideas  which  are  most 
important,  or  rather  those  which  seem  to  Jiim  to  be 
most  important ;  for  here  personal  opinion  and  taste 
must  again  come  into  play. 

The  Collection  of  Ideas,  and  the  Selection  and  Re- 
jection of  Ideas,  are  already  off  his  hands  :  he  need 
not  trouble  about  these  any  longer.  And  he  must  not 
yet  trouble  about  the  Arrangement  of  Ideas,  or  about 
their  Expression  :  these  will  come  later  on.  Nor  need 
he  trouble  about  how  he  is  actually  to  Emphasise  the 
Ideas ;  that  will  be  left  to  the  Arrangement  of  Ideas, 
and  (see  p.  268)  to  various  other  means,  such  as  Repeti- 
tion, Comparisons,  Contrasts,  etc. 

Here  he  only  has  to  decide  which  Ideas  he  considers 
to  be  rather  important,  or  appropriate,  or  interesting 
and  suggestive,  and  under  these  he  should  put  a  single 
line  ;  more  important,  etc.,  Ideas  should  have  a  double 
line  under  them ;  and  the  most  important,  etc.,  Ideas 
should  have  three  lines. 

But  the  other  extreme,  the  least  important,  etc., 
Ideas,  could  either  be  cut  out  or  else  have  no  particular 
sign  to  mark  them.  The  Sub-Headings,  that  is  to  say, 
the  Ideas  under  the  Main  Headings,  can  be  marked 
(see  p.  59)  by  being  Indented. 

170 


HOW   TO   PROPORTION   THE    HEADINGS       171 

//  7i'ill  be  necessary  for  yon  to  Colled  the  Snb- Headings 
before  you  Underline :  for,  until  }'ou  know  the  Sub- 
Headings  of  any  given  Main  Heading,  you  cannot 
safely  say  whether  that  ]\Iain  Heading  is  very  im- 
portant, etc.,  or  not. 


CHAPTER    XXXIII.     HOW   TO   ARRANGE 

THE    HEADINGS   AND 
SUBHEADINGS. 


When  once  you  have  begun  to  express  Ideas  in  lan- 
guage, it  is  far  too  late  to  think  of  Arranging  them  : 
that  is  to  say  unless  you  have  a  special  genius  for  this. 
The  ordinary  Essayist  or  Speaker  who  begins  to  write 
down  or  speak  his  Ideas  at  once,  is  (as  we  have  seen  on 
p.  45)  trying  to  do  a  threefold  or  fourfold  task,  each 
part  of  which  is  extremely  difficult  in  itself.  He  is, 
or  ought  to  be,  Collecting  his  Ideas,  Selecting,  and 
Proportioning  them.  Arranging  them,  and  Expressing 
them. 

Of  all  these  different  tasks,  probably  the  Arranging 
will  be  the  hardest  for  him,  partly  because  it  is  the 
least  practised.  After  all,  one  has  a  good  deal  of 
practice  in  Collecting  Ideas,  and  a  good  deal  of  practice 
in  Expressing  them  :  but  in  Arranging  them  one  has 
little  or  none.  In  the  whole  of  my  education,  I  do 
not  remember  to  have  had  a  single  lesson  in  the  art. 
Obviously,  however,  this  Arranging  of  Ideas  should 
have  been  studied  as  a  separate  process  all  by  itself. 

As  a  starting-point,  I  shall  take  a  quotation  from 
a  celebrated  authority  on  Essay-writing.  I  give  it  as 
a  type  of  bad  Arrangement,  and,  singularly  enough, 
it  comes  out  of  a  book  on  "  the  art  of  writing  English  ". 
It  will  be  seen,  for  instance,  that  the  Arrangement  of 
the  Ideas  is  very  faulty  for  at  least  two  reasons  :  first, 

172 


now  TO  ARRANGE  HEADINGS  173 

that  the  order  is  altogether  wrong,  and  secondly  that 
what  might  have  been  expressed,  and  should  have  been 
expressed,  under  13  headings  has  been  expressed  under 
28.  A  third  fault  would  be  that  very  important  Ideas, 
such  as  No.  28,  are  put  on  exactly  the  same  level  as 
petty  and  trivial  pieces  of  advice,  which  are  scarcely 
worth  mentioning  at  all.  In  Arrangement  or  classifica- 
tion, and  in  Proportion,  the  list  is  altogether  to  be 
censured. 

As  an  Exercise  in  Arrangement,  let  the  reader  him- 
self take  these  pages,  and  let  him  criticise  the  Arrange- 
ment, and  then  re-arrange  the  Ideas  in  a  logical  order. 

Let  him  devote  some  time  to  this,  because  the  Ideas 
themselves  will  be  of  great  value  in  Essay-writing. 

"GENERAL   RULES. 

"  I.  Vary  the  length  of  the  sentence.     Vary  also  the  form. 

"'Diversify  the  sentence-type,'  says  Dr.  Earle.  'The  one 
rule  is  to  be  infinitely  various'. — R.  L.  Stevenson. 

"  2.  Never  use  foreign  words  or  phrases,  unless  you  are  com- 
pelled to  do  so. 

"3.  Never  begin  a  sentence — or  a  clause — with  'also'. 

"  4.  Let  the  relative  stand  as  near  the  antecedent  as  possible. 

"  5.  Qualifying  phrases  and  modifying  adverbs  should  be 
placed  as  close  as  possible  to  the  words  they  are  to  qualify  or  to 
modify. 

"6.  Let  your  sentences  be  always  clear  to  yourself,  and  ascer- 
tain whether  they  are  also  clear  to  others. 

"7.  A  participle,  being  an  adjective  in  function,  must  always 
have  some  noun  or  pronoun  to  which  it  is  attached. 

"  8.  Avoid  such  phrases  as  '  Of  all  others,'  '  than  any  other '. 
*  Other  two'  for  '  two  more'  is  a  Scotticism. 

"9.  Let  there  be  one  subject  in  a  sentence. 

"  If  more  than  one  be  required,  let  its  relation  to  the  main 
subject  be  quite  clear.     Or  :  '  Do  not  change  your  nominative.' 

"10.  Avoid  tautology. 


174  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

"ii.  Avoid  pleonastic  expressions— like  'return  back'  or  're- 
turn back  again '. 

"  12.  Avoid  exaggeration— even  in  the  height  (or  the  depth)  of 
emotion. 

"13.  Avoid  such  clumsy  connectives  as  'therein',  'thereby', 
'  whereto  ',  '  whereupon ',  '  wherefore ',  etc.  All  of  these  are  more 
or  less  anticjuated. 

"  14.  Use  as  many  connectives  as  you  can.  Such  easy  connec- 
tives as  'again',  'once  more',  'on  the  other  hand',  'besides', 
give  lightness  to  the  composition. 

"  15.  Shun  cliches. 

"16.  Do  not  begin  your  paper  with  'The  above  title,'  'The 
subject  of  this  paper.' 

"  17.  Be  careful  about  the  position  of  the  word  'only'. 

"  18.  Avoid  repetition,  unless  it  is  really  necessary  or  distinctly 
telling. 

"  19.  Avoid  archaic,  quaint,  or  Biblical  phrases. 

"  Such  phrases  are  not  admissible  in  ordinary  prose. 

"  20.  Be  clear. 

" '  Care  should  be  taken,  not  that  the  reader  may  understand 
if  he  will,  but  that  he  must  understand,  whether  he  will  or  not.'— 
QUINTILIAN. 

"21.  Be  simple. 

"22.  Avoid  the  use  of  unnecessary  adjectives. 

"23.  Do  not  search  for  similes  or  metaphors.  If  the  subjec 
naturally  suggests  them,  they  will  come  of  themselves  ;  if  they  dot 
not,  they  are  better  away. 

"  24.  Emphasis  may  be  gained  by  an  inversion  of  the  natural 
order  of  words.  If  you  employ  inversion,  recollect  that  the  most 
striking  position  in  a  sentence  is  the  beginning  ;  and  the  next 
most  emphatic,  the  end. 

"25.  Be  careful  to  avoid  dislocation. 

"  26.  Draw  up  a  short  skeleton  of  what  you  are  going  to  write 
about. 

"  27.  Read  your  essay  aloud  after  it  is  written— either  to  your- 
self, or  to  a  friend,  or  to  both. 

"28.  Cut  out  those  words  you  can  do  without,  provided  the 
sense  and  rhythm  are  not  injured  by  the  process." 


HOW  TO  ARRANGE  HEADINGS  175 

The  follow ing  errors  may  be  mentioned,  as  a  few  out 
of  many : — 

(i)  No,  26  says  "  Draw  up  a  short  skeleton  of  what 
you  are  going  to  write  about".  This  is  quite  in  the 
wrong  place  :  it  should  come  first ; 

(ii)  No.  16  says  "  Do  not  begin  your  paper  with  '  The 
above  title',  'The  subject  of  this  paper'.  This  should 
not  be  as  late  as  16; 

(iii)  Nos.  4,  5,  17,  and  25  might  all  come  together; 
and  so  might 

(iv)  Nos.  10,  II,  22,  28  ; 

(v)  Nos.  13  and  19 ; 

(vi)  Nos.  6  and  20.  To  put  these  two  Sections  apart 
is  a  piece  of  carelessness :  no  one  who  had  carefully 
prepared  his  Scheme  by  the  Card-System  (p.  186)  could 
possibly  have  fallen  into  this  error. 

Let  him  now  see  whether  his  results  are  like  mine : 
of  course  I  do  not  put  mine  forward  as  final.  But  it 
will  be  seen  that  I  suggest  13  Headings  instead  of  28. 

I  put  in  brackets  some  comments  to  advice  which  I  do  not  consider 
to  be  quite  sound;  and  of  course  the  Hints  are  very  incomplete, 
and  some  are  trivial  (e.g.  16)  ;  the  second  remark  in  8  is  pedantic. 

I.  \Collectloti  of  Ideas  and  Arrangement]  : — 

(26)  "Draw  up  a  short  skeleton  of  what  you  are  going  to  write 
about."  [See  p.  186.] 

II.  [^Beginning]  : — 

(16)  "Do  not  begin  your  paper  with  'The  above  title',  'The 
subject  of  this  paper'."  [See  p.  258.] 

III.  [^Fairness]: — 

(12)  "Avoid  exaggeration — even  in  the  height  (or  the  depth) 
of  emotion."  [See  p.  301.] 


176  IDEAS:    HOJV   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

IV.  [Varicly']:— 

(i)  "Vary  the  length  of  the  sentence.    Vary  also  the  form.  .  .  ." 

V.  \_Snbjcct  of  the  Sentence,  e/c.'\ : — 

(g)  "  Let  there  be  one  subject  in  a  sentence.  .  .  ." 
(7)  "A  participle,  being  an  adjective  in  function,  must  always 
have  some  noun  or  pronoun  to  which  it  is  attached." 

VI.  [Clearness,  etc.'] : — 

(20)  "  Be  clear.  .  .  ." 

(6)  "  Let  your  sentences  be  always  clear  to  yourself,  and  ascertain 
whether  they  are  also  clear  to  others."  [See  p.  227.] 

(21)  "  Be  simple.     That  is,  be  yourself!  "    [But  see  pp.  45,  236.] 

VII.  [Connectives,  etc.]. 

(14)  "Use  as  many  connectives  as  you  can.  .  .  ." 

(3)  "Never  begin  a  sentence— or  a  clause — with  also." 

(13)  "Avoid  such  clumsy  connectives  as  therein,  thereby,  whereto, 
-whereupon,  wherefore,  etc.  All  of  these  are  more  or  less  anti- 
quated." 

VIII.  [Connexion  and  Order'] : — 

(25)  "  Be  careful  to  avoid  DISLOCATION." 

(4)  "  Let  the  relative  stand  as  near  the  antecedent  as  possible." 

(5)  "  Qualifying  phrases  and  modifying  adverbs  should  be 
placed  as  close  as  possible  to  the  words  they  are  to  qualify  or 
modify." 

IX.  [Choice  of  'wo?ds—c^.  VII.  (13)]  :— 

(19)  "Avoid  archaic,  quaint,  or  Biblical  phrases.  .  .  ." 
(2)  "  Never  use  foreign  words  or  phrases,  unless  you  are  com- 
pelled to  do  so." 

(15)  "Shun  cliches." 

X.  [Brevity  and  Economy,  etc.]  : — 

(22)  "Avoid  the  use  of  unnecessary  adjectives." 

(28)  "  Cut  out  those  words  you  can  do  without,  provided  the 
sense  and  the  rhythm  are  not  injured  by  the  process." 

(11)  "Avoid  pleonastic  expressions— like 'return  back'  .  .  ." 

(10)  "Avoid  tautology."  [But  see  p.  254.] 

(18)  "Avoid  repetition,  unless  it  is  necessary  or  distinctly 
telling." 

(8j  "Avoid  such  phrases  as  'Of  all  others',  'than  any  other'.  .  .  ." 


HOW   TO   ARRANGE   HEADINGS  177 

XI.  [^Einphasis]: — 

(24)  "Emphasis  may  be  gained  by  an  inversion  of  the  'natural' 
order  of  words.  .  .  ."  [And  see  p.  268.] 

XII.  [Meiap/iors]:— 

(23)  "  Do  not  search  for  similes  or  metaphors.  If  the  subject 
naturally  suggests  them,  they  will  come  of  themselves  :  if  they  do 
not,  they  are  better  away."   [Rut  sec  p.  162.] 

XIII.  [Revisioft]  :— 

(27)  "  Read  your  essay  aloud,  after  it  is  written^either  to  your- 
self, or  to  a  friend,  or  to  l:)Oth." 

For  another  instance  of  bad  Arrangement,  see  Bain's 
"  Rhetoric  and  Composition  "  (vol.  i.,  p.  xvi),  where  he 
has  one  great  HeacHng  for 

"CLEARNESS 

opposed  to  obscurity  .  .  ." 

followed  by  another  great  Heading  for 

"SIMPLICITY 

opposed  to  .  ,  .  difficulty  in  being  understood." 

For  every  subject,  for  every  set  of  Ideas,  there  is  otie 
best  possible  order,  for  each  set  of  readers  or  hearers,  for 
each  class  of  Composition,  and  for  each  aim  and  object 
of  the  Writer  or  Speaker. 

A  great  authority  on  Style,  namely  Flaubert,  used  to 
spend  whole  days  in  finding  the  exact  words  by  which 
to  express  his  Ideas.  One  cannot  consider  it  altogether 
a  waste  of  time  if  one  considers  how  much  it  must 
have  improved  his  power  of  perseverance  and  accuracy, 
and  his  conscientiousness.  But  the  art  of  Arranging 
Ideas  would  be  equally  worthy  of  such  thorough  treat- 
ment. The  Ideas  which  one  has  Collected  should  be 
Arranged  once,  and,  after  an  interval,  should  if  necessary 
be  re-arran^ed. 


[78  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

To  spend  hours  and  hours  or  days  and  days  over 
this  process  cannot  be  time  wasted,  because  tJie  poiver 
of  A  I'vanging  iimst  affect  every  single  department  of  life. 
It  can  hardly  be  too  often  repeated  that  a  power  hke 
this,  when  rightly  acquired  in  any  one  department  of 
life,  can  then  be  applied  to  any  other  department.  The 
power  of  Arranging  Ideas  for  an  Essay  will  even  help 
the  power  of  arranging,  let  us  say,  things  in  a  room 
or  books  on  a  shelf  or  things  in  a  box  or  bag  ;  that  is 
to  say,  provided  that  the  art  has  been  practised  in  the 
right  way.  In  other  words,  it  will  produce  a  general 
power  and  facility  for  Arrangement. 

Only  a  few  principles  can  be  mentioned  here.  Very 
much,  of  course,  as  we  have  already  said,  must  depend 
on  the  readers  or  hearers,  on  whether  they  are  stupid 
or  educated,  whether  they  are  general  readers  or 
specialists ;  much  also  must  depend  on  the  aim  or  aims 
of  the  author ;  much  also  on  the  subject  itself,  for 
instance,  whether  it  is  in  the  nature  of  scientific  proof 
or  in  the  nature  of  a  light  and  easy  conversation  or  talk. 

For  example,  a  difficulty  often  arises  as  to  whether 
one  shall  put  the  Instances  before  the  Principle,  or  vice 
versa.  One  has  Instances  to  illustrate  a  Principle,  and 
a  Principle  which  may  be  illustrated  by  Instances. 
Which  shall  come  first?  A  safe  scheme  for  average 
purposes  I  have  found  to  be  the  following,  and  I  see 
it  has  been  (unconsciously)  applied  by  a  large  number 
of  well-known  Essayists  and  Speakers. 

I  and  2.  The  Evidences  for  a  statement  or  principle 
should  be  given.  Or,  as  an  alternative  for  No.  i, 
Fallacies  and  wrong  ideas  on  the  subject  may  be  refuted. 
Or  either  of  these  might  be  i,  and  the  other  would 
then  be  2. 


now   TO   ARRANGE   HEADINGS  179 

3.  A  single  Instance— let  it  be  as  clear  and  as  in- 
teresting as  possible,  to  the  readers— may  now  be  given. 
The  Instance  might  be  introduced  by  some  Comparison, 
if  it  were  not  sufficiently  clear  3nd  interesting  in  itself 
(see  p.  281). 

4.  From  this  Instance  should  be  drawn  the  Principle 
which  it  illustrates  and  embodies  : 

5.  This  Principle  may  be  still  further  illustrated  by 
other  Instances,  or 

6.  by  Contrasts,  which  would  perhaps  do  more  to 
illustrate  and  to  emphasise  it  than  anything  else 
possibly  could  (see  p.  291). 

7.  If  there  are  other  Principles,  they  may  be  intro- 
duced in  the  same  way,  viz.  at  first  by  a  single  Instance. 

8.  A  Summary  at  the  end  may  gather  together  and 
tabulate  all  the  Principles,  which  may  now  need  to  be 
re-arranged  in  the  best  possible  order. 

9.  Exceptions  to  the  Principles,  and  Objections  to 
them,  with  answers,  may  come  at  the  end,  or  they  ma\' 
precede  No.  8. 

Of  course  this  is  only  a  general  cnlcr,  and  is  liable  to 
many  changes. 

Some  tests  of  good  order,  in  many  t>'pcs  of  more 
serious  Essays  or  Speeches,  would  be  as  follows  : — 

1.  When  )-ou  have  read  the  Essay,  and  have  remem- 
bered the  first  Heading,  then  the  other  Headings  ought 
to  follow  easily,  as  if  all  of  them  had  been  linked 
together:  just  as,  if  you  were  given  one  link  in  a  chain, 
you  ought  to  be  able  to  pull  the  whole  chain  towards 
you  by  means  of  that  link. 

But  this  is  a  test  not  only  of  Arrangement  but  also 
of  Connexion.     There  are  very  few  Essa}s  which  will 


I  So  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

stand  this  test.  ]\Iost  of  them  contain  several  tran- 
sitions of  a  very  jerky  kind.  The  reader  has  to  jump 
from  one  point  to  anotlier,  and  does  not  slide  uncon- 
sciously over  the  joint. 

2.  Anyhow,  certain  clear  Ideas  should  be  left  behind 
in  your  mind  as  to  the  'Pros  and  Cons'  of  the  case, 
and  there  should  not  be  too  many  Ideas  left  behind,  but 
rather  several  very  important  points  in  the  foreground, 
and  much  in  the  middle  distance,  and  still  more  in  the 
background. 

3.  Throughout,  the  Essay  should  have  been  intej-est- 
ing  (and,  if  possible,  suggestive).  Of  course  the 
Interest  cannot  be  entirely  dependent  on  the  Arrange- 
ment alone.  Ikit  it  is  surprising  how,  with  a  given 
number  of  Ideas,  expressed  in  similar  words,  one 
Arrangement  will  make  them  interesting  and  another 
Arrangement  will  make  them  dull. 

Among  the  difficulties  of  Arrangement  is  the  difficulty 
of  harmonising  these  two  principles,  namely  Interest 
and  Connexion.  Both  of  them  must  be  considered,  as 
well  as  the  other  principle  of  Proportion. 

The  Ideas  should  be  arranged  according  to  their 
importance,  and  in  such  a  way  that  one  may  naturally 
lead  to  another,  and  that  the  Interest  may  be  sustained 
throughout. 

It  will  be  noticed  here  that  I  have  said  nothing  about 
the  omission  of  unnecessary  Ideas.  This  belongs,  not 
to  Arrangement,  but  to  another  department  of  Essay- 
writing  and  Speaking,  namely  to  Selection  and  Rejec- 
tion. The  Essayist  or  Speaker  should  have  Selected 
and  Rejected  his  Ideas  before  he  thinks  of  Arranging 
them. 


now  TO   ARRANGE  HEADINGS  i8l 

The  following  general  principles  may  apply  to  a  good 
many  Compositions. 

1.  When  you  have  Collected  the  Main  Headings,  and 
under  them  the  Sub-Headings,  and  under  these  again 
the  Sub-Sub-IIcadings,  then  take  the  Main  Headings 
first  and  Arrange  tlicni.  This  is  best  done  by  the 
CardS>'stem  (see  p.  iS6).  Group  together  those  zuhich 
are  akin,  under  one  great  Heading  or  general  notion. 
This  should  be  the  first  aim,  namely  to  collect  together 
such  Headings  as  come  into  the  same  class,  beneath  the 
same  roof,  as  it  were. 

On  p.  92  we  have  seen  that  a  'group'  might  be 
formed  of  Ideas  which  are  all  Causes  or  Hindrances  of 
something,  or  which  are  Effects  of  something,  or  which 
are  Objections  to  your  Ideas,  and  so  on. 

2.  You  may  possibly  have  two  or  three  such  classes 
(see  p.  185);  but  outside  these  classes  there  may  still 
be  certain  isolated  Main  Headings  ivhich  do  not  seem  to 
fall  into  any  one  class.  How  are  these  to  be  Arranged  ? 
Often  one  is  driven  to  Arrange  them  in  a  certain  order 
merely  because  some  casual  item  under  one  Heading 
will  lead  on  to  the  next  Heading,  that  is  to  say,  there 
may  be  no  real  vital  connexion  between  the  two  but  a 
mere  word  about  one  will  serve  as  a  transition  to  the 
other,  just  as  it  so  often  does  in  conversation  :  e.g. 
'  Talking  of  so-and-so  and  William  Arthur,  reminds  me 
that  Arthur  Jones  is  ill '. 

3.  The  order  adopted  by  Demosthenes  was  very 
different  from  this.  As  one  reads  one  of  his  Speeches 
there  seems  to  be  no  Arrangement  icJiatcver,  and  }-et  he 
must  have  Arranged  his  subjects  as  carefully  as  possible  ; 
and  the  same  will  apply  to  the  section  (which  I  have 
given  on  p.  212)  from  the  "Sermon   on   the   Mount". 


1 82  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

There  is  apparent  disorder  and  want  of  Arrangement, 
whereas  there  is  really  an  extremely  scientific  Arrange- 
ment, which  has  succeeded  in  appearing  casual.  It  has 
concealed  its  art. 

What  is  the  principle  of  this  ?  It  is  in  the  main  to  lead 
up  to  a  single  Idea  from  different  points  (see  p.  215).  To 
start  with  something  which,  apparently,  is  merely  inter- 
esting and  has  no  connexion  with  the  topic,  and  then 
gradually  to  lead  on  to  the  Idea  which  one  wishes  to 
emphasise ;  and  so  the  point  comes  for  the  first  time. 
Then  a  new  topic  is  started,  interesting  again,  but 
apparently  unconnected  with  the  first ;  but  gradually 
this  leads  up  to  the  same  point  as  before.  When  this 
has  been  done  four  times,  let  us  say,  then  that  point 
has  been  ejiiphasiscd.  This  method  is  particularly 
adapted  for  appealing  to  average  people,  for  instance, 
to  a  large  popular  audience.  The  advantage  of  it  is 
that  the  Interest  can  be  kept  up  throughout.  The 
curiosity  can  be  excited,  for  the  people  will  be  saying 
to  themselves,  '  Why  on  earth  is  he  talking  about  this, 
which  is  surely  quite  off  the  point  ? ' 

And  not  only  is  there  Interest,  but  there  is  also 
Variety.  In  the  reading  of  that  passage  on  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  it  does  not  occur  to  the  casual  reader 
that  Jesus,  throughout,  was  speaking  of  only  one  thing.  He 
seemed  to  be  speaking  of  many  things  :  of  the  preacher, 
of  sheep  and  wolves,  of  fig-trees  and  thistles,  of  the 
Day  of  Judgment,  of  the  house  built  on  rock  or 
on  sand ;  and  yet  all  these  parts  have  one  Aim. 
They  are  all  on  the  same  subject,  but  they  approach 
it  from  different  points  of  view.  For  teaching  pur- 
poses, this  method  is  almost  as  indispensable — as  it  is 
unusual. 


now   TO  ARRANGE  HEADINGS  183 

When  an  Essay  or  Speech  adopts  a  more  'methodic,  1 ' 
Arrangement,  it  should  work  on  the  following  lines. 

The  Bcginiiiug,  or  rather  the  Ik^ginnings,  should  be 
Interesting. 

The  'Middle'  or  mass,  should  be  more  solid  and  should 
contain  the  most  important  part  of  the  work ;  but, 
within  the  Essay  or  Speech,  Proportion  must  be  obser- 
ved, so  that  Ideas  which  the  writer  thinks  important 
may  stand  out  as  important,  and  trivial  ideas  may  be 
thrown  into  the  background. 

The  Ending,  except  in  lighter  literature,  should  be 
not  so  much  Interesting  as  Impressive. 

This  rule,  which  applies  to  an  Essay  or  Speech, 
applies  equally  to  a  Book,  as  we  all  know  (see  p.  258), 
and  to  a  Paragraph,  and  to  some  extent  even  to  a 
Sentence.  But,  in  these  two  latter  spheres,  the  principle 
of  Connexion  (p.  263)  is  also  to  be  considered. 

What  is  the  hcst practiee  for  Arrangement ? 

1.  To  give  oneself  an  object  in  view,  one  ought  to 
'Arrange'  for  some  special  purpose,  whether  it  be  for 
Teaching  or  for  Lecturing  or  for  an  Article ;  this  will 
make  the  work  more  interesting. 

2.  And  notice  that  the  first  Arrangement  should  not 
be  accepted  as  final.  Second  thoughts  are  sometimes  the 
best.     An  interval  (see  p.  330)  may  be  a  wonderful  aid. 

3.  What  is  called  Precis-writing,  or  Suniniarisitig* 
is  a  great  help  to  Arrangement  That  is  to  say,  one 
hears  or  one  reads  some  subject  (e.g.  a  series  of  Letters 
or  Articles),  and  then  one  reproduces  it.  Only  this 
itself  is  hardly  practice  in  Arrangement.  The  Arrange- 
ment must  come  afterwards.     Supposing  a  Master  read 

*  For  the  suggestion  as  to  Summarising  Parliamentary  and  other 
Speeches,  see  p.  387. 


i84  IDEAS:    HOW    TO   COLLECT,  ETC. 

out  to  his  class  an  interesting  Article  on  some  subject, 
his  class  could  write  down  on  Cards  the  Ideas  which 
they  remembered,  and  the  full  List  of  Ideas  or  Headings 
could  be  given  by  the  Master  ;  so  far,  again,  there  would 
be  no  practice  in  Arrangement.  But  if  the  packets  of 
Cards  which  each  boy  had  were  sJiuffled  and  then  were 
re-arranged  by  each  boy,  and  if  then  the  Arrangement 
were  criticised  by  different  boys  or  by  the  whole  class, 
and  if  free  criticism  were  allowed,  then  we  should  have 
an  excellent  piece  of  practice  in  Arranging,  as  well  as 
in  Collecting  and  remembering  Ideas. 

4.  It  should  be  always  borne  in  mind  that  many 
different  Arrangements  may  be  fairly  good  for  the  same 
set  of  Ideas,  e.g.  according  to  the  different  objects  and 
aims  of  the  Writer  or  Speaker. 

5.  P'^inally,  Indenting  is  of  importance.  When  one 
Main  Heading  has  under  it  certain  Sub-Headings,  these 
Sub-Headings  should  always  go  just  a  little  'inland',  not 
directly  beneath  the  Main  Heading,  but  just  a  little  more 
to  the  right.  The  advantage  of  this  is  obvious.  It 
makes  the  Main  Headings  easier  to  revise  by  them- 
selves, and  the  Sub- Headings  by  themselves,  and  it 
helps  to  show  what  is  more  important  and  what  is  less 
important.  The  'Sub-Sub-Headings'  should  be  still 
further  indented. 

The  power  of  Arranging  Ideas  is  seldom  born  with 
a  man.  It  nearly  always  has  to  be  'made'.  But  it  is 
wonderful  how  practice  will  improve  it.  One  might 
compare  what  practice  will  do  in  the  way  of  packing 
bags.  A  skilful  packer  will  get  into  a  bag  half  as  much 
again  as  an  unskilful  packer.  There  are  some  who  are 
born  with  the  art  of  packing  bags,  but  most  people  have 
to  (or  ought  to)  learn  it  for  themselves. 


//OJV   TO  ARRANGE  HEADINGS  1S5 

Another  comparison  suggests  itself  here,  and  that  is 
that,  after  a  raihvay  journey,  a  bag  which  has  seemed 
quite  full  at  the  start  is  shown  to  have  sorted  its  con- 
tents somewhat  differently,  and,  of  its  own  accord,  as  it 
were,  to  have  arranged  them  more  scientifically  and 
more  economically.  The  brain  does  very  much  the 
same  vv-ith  its  Ideas.  Leave  your  Ideas  alone  in  your 
brain  for  a  week,  and  }'ou  will  probably  find  that  in  the 
meanwhile  they  have  arranged  themselves  quite  satis- 
factorily, and  have  bred  other  Ideas  as  well. 

In  spite  of  the  great  value  of  Arrangement  and  of 
practice  in  Arrangement,  however,  it  is  a  part  of 
Composition  that  is  very  little  studied :  its  import- 
ance is  seldom  insisted  on,  nor  is  bad  Arrangement 
easily  detected.  This  may  be  partly  because,  as  we 
actually  Write  or  Speak  (or  read  or  listen),  we  are 
apt  to  concentrate  our  attention  rather  on,  e.g.,  the 
Vocabulary,  the  RliN'thm,  the  order  of  Words,  the 
Syntax,  and  the  Ideas  themselves.  Another  reason 
would  be  that  its  Principles  are  little  known  or  studied 
or  applied  as  a  special  art.  A  third  reason  would  be 
that  Analysing  and  Precis-writing  are  a  'habit'  little 
practised  and  cultivated  in  our  ordinary  Education  :  and, 
without  such  Analysing,  the  Arrangement  of  Ideas  or 
Headings  is  incredibly  difficult. 

As  an  Exercise  in  Arrangement,  let  the  reader  try  to  Arrange  the 
Causes  of  Rome's  Success  (see  pp.  10,  83,  263):  e.g.  The  Senate, 
AHiances,  Family  Life,  Geography,  Roads,  Etruscan  Kings, 
Colonies,  Character,  Slaves,  Individual  Leaders,  Mixture  of 
Peoples  in  Rome,  Extension  of  Rights  to  Aliens,  Organisation  (in 
Religion,  etc.),  Treachery,  Lenity,  Isolation  of  Others,  Weakness  of 
Enemies,  Slaves,  Gradual  Conquest,  and  so  on.  One  Arrangement 
will  be  suggested  in  "  How  to  Rcmcmljer."'  For  another  Exercise, 
see  p.  277. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV.     THE   CARD-SYSTEM. 


The  Card-System  applies,  as  we  shall  see,  not  simply 
to  Ideas  and  Pleadings  for  Essays  and  Speeches,  but 
also  to  Mems  and  Quotations ;  and  for  Index-writing 
it  is  inestimable. 

There  are  certain  Objertious  to  the  Card-System,  and 
the  first  might  be  that  it  would  be  expensive.  But,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  each  Card  might  be  used  four  times, 
or  even  six  or  eight  times.  Supposing,  however,  that 
each  Card  were  only  used  three  times,  even  then  the 
rate  for  a  thousand  words  of  Writing  or  Speaking 
would  be  quite  trifling,  if  each  Card  contained,  let  us 
say,  ten  words  ;  for  the  Cards  only  cost  half-a- crown 
a  thousand,  and  ean  be  had  for  two  shillings. 

At  first,  also,  it  might  be  thought  that  the  Cards 
would  be  inconvenient  to  use,  but  the  personal  ex- 
perience of  thousands  shows  that,  at  any  rate  for 
business- purposes,  exactly  the  reverse  is  true.  The 
Cards  are  quite  easy  to  carry  about  when  one  is 
travelling,  if  only  one  uses  elastic  bands  or  Cabinets  or 
Card-holders ;  and  any  kind  of  inconvenience  will  very 
soon  disappear  after  a  little  practice. 

And  the  same  will  apply  to  the  objection  that  the 
System  is  unusiial.  Seldom  have  there  been  any  new 
suggestions  which  have  not  been  condemned  as  '  un- 
usual ',  and,  if  one  tried  to  introduce  the  System  in 
Examinations,  where  it  certainly  ought  to  be  intro- 
duced, one  would  be  met  by  this  objection — 'We  are 
not  in  the  Jiabit  of  allowing  Cards'.  But  this  is  no 
fair  condemnation.  In  Examinations,  paper  can  be  torn 
up  into  small  oblong  pieces,  which  will  serve  as  Cards. 

i86 


THE   CARD-SYSTEM 


187 


The  System  may  now  be  explained  briefly.  It  has 
often  been  misunderstood.  For  instance,  one  hidy 
entirely  missed  the  point,  and  wrote  down  twenty 
Ideas  on  a  single  card.  In  such  a  case  the  Card- 
System  had  no  great  advantage  over  the  ordinary 
Memorandum-system,  or  even  over  the  Note-book. 

1.  The  principle  is  to  buy  Cards  at  half-a-crown  a 
thousand,  or  even  less,  and  on  them  to  write  Headings, 
and  not  Sentences,  copying  only  one  Heading  on  one  Card, 
and  of  course  writing  only  on  one  side  of  the  Card  at 
a  time.     The  Cards  can  be  turned  afterwards. 

2.  If  there  are  any  Sub-Headings,  these  can  come 
either  on  separate  Cards  following  the  main  Heading, 
or  (but  this  is  not  so  good)  on  the  same  Card,  but 
indented  (see  p.  59).  To  keep  the  Sub-Headings  on 
separate  Cards  is  far  the  best  way. 

3.  These  Cards  (if  used  only  once)  should  be  labelled 
and  catalogned  very  carefully. 

4.  A  great  help  towards  Arrangement  and  Clearness 
is  to  have  Cards  of  different  sizes  and  shapes,  and  of 
different  colours,  or  with  different  marks  on  them : 
see  below.  There  should  also  be  a  Card-Tra\^  or  a 
box  with  compartments  in  it,  such  as  shown  in  the 
following  illustration.  Of  course  the  Tray  might  have 
an  open  top. 


i88  IDEAS:   HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC, 

5.  Above  all,  there  must  be  no  false  economy,  for  the 
Cards  are  extraordinarily  cheap — so  cheap  that  there 
can  scarcely  be  one  of  my  readers  whose  time  would 
not  be  far  more  precious  to  him  than  the  few  pence 
which  he  might  save  by  such  economising. 

6.  It  is  also  important  to  have  thin  elastic  bands  with 
which  to  tie  up  the  packets. 

7.  In  using  the  Cards,  and  in  filling  in  the  Headings, 
one  should  employ  Abbreviations  freely:  a  few  of  them 
have  been  suggested  on  p.  70. 

Some  special  Marks  may  be  added  here. 


Special  Marks  on  Cards :- 


As  contiasted 
with— 


2.   Quotation. 


3.    Important. 


4.    As  compared 
with — 


End  of  Para- 

6. Connecting  Link 

7.  An   omission, 

8.  A  doub 

graph    (or 

between    two 

e.g.    to     be 

point. 

Chapter). 

Sentences    or 

filled  in  after- 

Paragraphs, 

wards. 

etc. 

THE   CARD-SYSTEM  1S9 

These  are  only  a  few  Samples:  they  could  easily  be 
altered  or  added  to.  The  Abbreviatioiis  afid  Marks  need 
be  clear  only  to  the  Writer  himself.  They  save  ever  so 
much  time. 

8.  After  the  Headings  and  Sub-Headings  have  been 
written,  they  can  then  be  Arranged,  and 

9.  finally  can  be  cndwdied  in  a  Scheme,  if  there  is 
time.     Before  they  are  ready  for  the  Scheme,  however, 

10.  they  should  be  put  aside  for  a  long  interval,  so 
that,  e.g.,  additions  can  be  made  to  them.  When  they 
have  been  finished  they  may  be  spread  out  on  a  table 
or  on  several  tables.  If  you  can  get  a  table  with  pegs, 
or  something  to  mark  the  divisions  between  the  packets, 
it  will  be  so  much  the  better.  To  mark  Main  Headings 
you  might  have  coloured  Cards,  for  instance,  blue  Cards, 
or  else  larger  Cards. 

1 1 .  You  should  ahvays  carry  a  feio  Cards  about  in 
your  pocket,  in  case  you  should  think  of  anything  useful, 
for  instance,  during  a  walk.  It  will  be  very  easy  to 
distribute  these  Cards  afterwards  in  their  proper  packets. 
You  should  keep  a  special  place  for  these  niiscellancous 
Headings,  and  these  )'ou  should  sort  at  intervals. 

12.  So  far  we  have  considered  only  just  the  I\Iain 
Headings  and  the  Sub-Headings.  But  it  would  be 
possible,  and  it  would  be  advisable,  if  the  work  has  to 
be  carefully  done,  to  apply  the  Card-System  to  '0071- 
nexions',  i.e.  to  write  on  Cards  the  connecting  link  be- 
tween each  Idea  and  the  Idea  that  follows  ;  and  it  may 
be  as  well  to  apply  the  System  even  to  Paragraphs, 
that  is  to  say,  before  you  write  a  Paragraph  to  write  on 
Cards  the  Headings  for  the  different  sections  of  it. 

It  may  be  mentioned,  by  the  way,  that  to  treat  the 
written  Paragraphs  on  a  similar  System  is  also  a  great 


I90  IDEAS:    HOW  TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

saving  of  time,  that  is  to  say,  when  you  are  copying 
out  the  Essay  itself,  to  write  each  Paragraph  on  a 
separate  piece  of  paper.  If  you  do  this,  you  will  have 
far  less  re-writing  when  you  come  to  copy  out  the 
Essay  finally.  But  this  applies  rather  to  Writing  for 
the  Press. 

13.  At  first  it  is  a  mistake  to  think  of  anything  else 
except  the  mere  jotting  doivn  of  Ideas.  The  Ideas  should 
be  jotted  down,  each  on  its  own  Card,  and  the  Sub- 
Headings  should  be  jotted  down  on  their  own  Cards, 
a  little  way  '  inland '.  Afterwards  there  will  be  time 
enough  to  subdivide  the  topics,  and  to  re-arrange  them ; 
but  at  the  beginning  you  must  concentrate  your  atten- 
tion on  the  Collection  of  Ideas,  and  must  not  think  at 
all  about  the  Arrangement. 

This  is  the  great  advantage  of  the  Card-System  over 
the  ordinary  Scheme  (on  a  single  sheet  of  paper),  for 
with  the  latter  one  has  to  be  thinking  of  two  things  at 
the  same  time,  namely,  of  the  Arrangement  of  the 
Ideas  as  well  as  the  Collection  of  the  Ideas. 

14.  When  it  does  come  to  the  Arranging,  the  Cards 
shonld  be  arranged  something  like  a  hand  at  Whist. 
And  you  will  find  it  very  easy  to  alter,  to  add,  or  to 
take  away,  for  you  can  always  snbstitnte  a  new  Card  or 
remove  an  old  one. 

15.  The  old  Cards  can  be  used  in  many  ways.  You 
can  turn  them  upside-down,  and  treat  the  other  end 
similarly,  then  you  can  turn  them  over  and  the  backs 
of  them  will  give  you  two  more  spaces  to  be  used. 
Some  might  even  use  the  four  sides  also !  After  the 
Cards  are  entirely  covered,  they  can  be  used  for  scrap- 
books  for  Hospitals. 

16.  The  System   can   be  applied   to  other  purposes 


TlfE   CARD-SYSTEM  191 

besides  Essay-writing,  such  as,  for  \\\^\.7x\-\cQ,tJit  Anwngc- 
iiient  of  people  at  a  dinner-party ;  but  here  I  am  only 
speaking  of  their  use  for  Hterary  purposes.  The  ad- 
vantages of  this  System  I  shall  treat  of  in  the  next 
Chapter,  but  I  may  say  here,  b}'  way  of  anticipation, 
that  they  enable  one  to  concentrate  one's  attention  on 
the  Collection  of  Ideas  as  apart  from  their  Arrange- 
ment and  Expression  ;  that  they  are  easier  and  quicker 
to  use,  if  alterations  have  to  be  made  ;  that  they  can  be 
worked  with  extraordinary  rapidity,  especially  if  they 
are  combined  with  Dictation  (see  p.  69),  and  if  they 
have  been  practised  for  some  time.  As  to  rapidity, 
it  is  possible  to  dictate  from  Cards  an  Article  of  three 
thousand  words,  that  is  to  say,  such  a  one  as  might 
appear  in  the  "Nineteenth  Century",  in  half  an  hour. 
The  preparation  by  the  Card-System  might  take  twenty 
minutes,  if  one  knew  the  subject  well ;  the  arrangement 
ten  minutes  ;  and  the  dictation  thirty  minutes. 

I  arrived  at  the  Card-System  by  degrees,  and  was  glad  to  find 
that  Prof.  Wendell  also  recommended  Cards.  I  have  elaborated 
the  System  considerably  in  the  last  few  months,  and  now  I  generally 
use  the  Cards  of  the  Library  Bureau  (IMoomsbury  Street,  London), 
or  those  by  Messrs.  Evans  and  Hallewell,  5,  Ave  I^Iaria  Lane, 
London,  E.C.     The  latter  are  the  cheaper. 


CHAPTER  XXXV.     ADVANTAGES  OF 

THE  CARD-SYSTEM. 


On  the  advantages  of  the  Card-System  I  have  already 
said  a  few  words.  These  advantages  can  now  be  con- 
sidered somewhat  in  detail. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  their  use  for  purposes  of 
Connecting,  e.g.  of  giving  Causes  and  Effects,  and  for 
keeping  the  right  Proportion  of  importance  (see  p.  189). 
Other  points  now  remain  to  be  considered. 

1.  As  I  have  said,  they  are  very  cheap,  for  they  can  be 
obtained  at  less  than  half-a-crown  a  thousand  ;  and  each 
Card  can  be  used  at  least  four  times. 

2.  They  are  very  portable,  especially  if  they  have 
holes  in  them,  and  if  boxes  are  made  in  which  they 
may  be  kept :  see  p.  1 87. 

3.  They  are  useful /<?r  otJier  purposes,  besides  Essay- 
writing  and  Speaking.  For  instance,  for  Addresses, 
for  Bills,  and  for  Memoranda. 

4.  They  encourage  a  business-like  brevity. 

5.  They  ensure  wonderful  rapidity.  A  whole  book 
of  thirty  thousand  words  I  have  prepared  (though  of 
course  only  roughly)  in  two  hours,  by  the  Card-System. 
Such  a  pace  would  have  been  impossible  otherwise. 
This  does  not  include  any  of  the  Dictation  ;  it  merely 
includes  the  Collection  and  Selection  of  Ideas,  and 
their  Arrangement.  The  System  is  a  wonderful  saving 
uf  time,   partly  because  so  {q.\\  Headings   have  to  be 

192 


AD]\4NTAGES   OF  THE   CARD-SYSTEM        193 

rc-written.  Each  Idea  has  only  to  be  written  once. 
Another  reason  why  it  saves  time  is  that  here  you  can 
imply  things  instead  of  having  to  express  them  in  full, 
for  your  Card-System  and  its  Headings  need  only  to  be 
clear  to  yourself  (see  p.  6y),  whereas  a  complete  Essay 
or  Speech  must  be  in  Sentences  and  must  be  clear  to 
your  readers  or  hearers  as  well.  In  the  Cards  you  can 
use  all  kinds  of  Abbreviations  (p.  70) :  these,  again, 
need  only  be  clear  to  yourself. 

6.  As  to  the  effect  upon  the  writing-out,  very  fezv 
pages  have  to  be  re-zvritteu.  Instead  of  perhaps  twenty 
or  thirty  pages  in  a  Book,  you  will  have  to  re-write  not 
more  than  two  or  three,  and  these  will  generally  be  in 
the  Preface,  where  re-writing  is  almost  inevitable. 

7.  Another  good  effect  upon  the  writing-out  will  be 
that  the  nmnhcr  of  words  ivill  be  very  small.  It  is  worth 
while  to  make  the  following  experiment.  Take  an 
Essay-Subject  and  work  it  out  in  the  common  way, 
namely,  by  writing  the  Essay  straight  down,  just  as  you 
think  of  the  Ideas.  Let  us  say  that  you  give  two  hours 
to  doing  this.  Now  take  this  Essay,  and  count  the 
number  of  words  which  it  contains :  let  us  say  that  it 
contains  fifteen  hundred.  Next  take  the  Essay  and 
analyse  it,  writing  down  each  Heading  and  each  Sub- 
Heading  on  a  separate  Card.  Take  these  Cards  and 
re-arrange  them,  and,  if  necessary,  alter,  and  add  new 
Headings  or  Sub-Headings.  Last  of  all,  do  the  Essay 
over  again  from  the  Cards,  and  count  the  number  of 
words.  The  Essay  will  probably  be  far  better  than  it 
was  before,  better  in  Completeness,  better  in  Clearness, 
and  better  in  Arrangement  ;  yet  I  doubt  if  it  would 
come  to  more  than  five  hundred  words,  at  any  rate,  if 
you  are  an  average  Essay-writer.     It  is  quite  obvious 

o 


194  IDEAS:    HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

that  the  gahi  both  for  the  \\'riter  or  Speaker,  and  for 
the  reader  or  hstener,  may  be  very  considerable. 

8.  It  has  been  seen  above  that  part  of  the  System  is 
to  leave  an  interval  after  the  Cards  have  once  been 
written.  During  this  interval,  let  us  say  of  a  week,  if 
you  can  spare  it,  changes  will  be  sure  to  occur  to  you. 
You  will  want  to  add  some  things,  to  alter  others,  and 
possibly  to  omit  others.  Now,  supposing  yon  had  aheady 
zvritten  yonr  Essay  out,  it  would  be  very  inconvenient  to 
make  these  alterations ;  to  put  in  a  fresh  paragraph 
here,  or  to  alter  half  an  old  paragraph  there,  is  tiresome 
work  for  the  Writer,  and  produces  an  unpleasant  result 
for  the  reader.  With  the  Card-System  this  disadvan- 
tage is  minimised. 

9.  But  the  great  merit  is,  as  I  have  already  stated,  that 
the  Card-System  enables  you  to  focus  your  attention  on 
one  task  at  a  time,  and  especially  on  the  Collection  of 
Ideas. 

At  first  it  may  not  seem  obvious  that  this  is  a  gain. 
But,  considering  the  matter  scientifically,  you  must  see 
that  your  work  will  be  better  if  you  have  not  to  bother 
about  the  order  in  which  your  Ideas  have  to  come,  but 
can  freely  write  them  down  on  Cards,  by  a  process 
which  is  considerably  quicker  than  Shorthand,  and  be 
quite  sure  that  the  Arrangement  of  these  Cards  after- 
wards will  be  easy  as  a  separate  task.  Later  on,  you 
can  concentrate  your  attention  no  longer  on  what  your 
Ideas  are  to  be,  but  on  how  they  are  to  be  Arranged. 
And  again,  you  can  concentrate  your  attention,  by 
means  of  the  Card-System,  on  what  Comparisons  or 
Contrasts  you  are  to  use,  what  Fallacies  you  are  to 
expose,  and  so  on.  Not  only  will  you  have  Collected  the 
greatest  possible  number  of  Ideas,  and  have  Arranged 


ADVANTAGES   OF  THE  CARD-SYSTEM        195 

them  in  the  best  way  you  can  ;  but  each  individual 
section  of  your  Essay  will  be  better  and  better  Arranged 
by  this  System  than  by  any  other.  I-'inally,  when  your 
Cards  have  been  prepared,  you  can  concentrate  your 
whole  attention  on  how  to  Express  the  Ideas. 

10.  The  Card-S)'stem  will  therefore  be  good  practice 
for  Writmg  generally,  and  I  very  often  use  it  for  impor- 
tant Letters:  not  merely  because  it  improves  the  Letter, 
but  also  because  it  actually  saves  time.  But  it  is  not 
only  for  Writing  that  it  is  valuable :  it  is  valuable  for 
Speaking  also.  Anyone,  who  has  practised  the  Card- 
System  for  some  time,  can  prepare  a  Speech  in  a  very 
few  minutes  :  and  this  gift  is  simply  inestimable. 

I  r.  The  power  of  Sinnviarising  and  of  Precis- writing 
which  the  Card-System  gives  is  extraordinary  :  whereas 
to  Anah'se  a  piece  of  English  (see  p.  233)  used  to  take 
me  perhaps  half  an  hour,  it  now  takes  me  something  like 
five  minutes.  It  is  interesting  to  notice,  in  a  Telegraph 
Office,  how  long  a  time  people  take  in  composing  their 
telegrams,  and  how  the  final  result  is  often  not  nearly 
as  good  as  it  might  have  been.  It  is  obscure,  and 
perhaps  a  whole  penny  has  been  wasted  !  The  Card- 
System,  which  jots  down  Headings  clearly,  but  briefly, 
is  very  good  practice  for  this. 

12.  Under  8  we  have  already  seen  how,  as  one  is 
actually  writing  on  or  Arranging  the  Cards,  there  is  a 
very  good  chance  of  new  Ideas  suggesting  themselves  en 
passant;  and,  when  these  new  Ideas  have  suggested 
themselves,  it  is,  as  I  have  said,  very  easy  to  add  them. 
It  is  easy  to  add  new  Cards  to  the  pack,  either  at  the 
time  or  later  on.  It  is  easy  to  take  out  Cards  that  you 
do  not  want,  and  to  alter  the  Headings  on  those  Cards 
which  you   already  have.     Again,  when  the  Cards  are 


196  IDEAS:   HOW   TO   COLLECT,   ETC. 

Arranged,  the  Card-System  enables  one  to  revise  the 
Arrangement  very  quickly,  and  to  alter  it  if  necessary. 
And  it  is  wonderful  how  it  improves  the  power  of  order 
and  Arrangement.  The  process  of  solving  the  problem 
'  Here  are  ten  Ideas,  eight  of  which  have  Sub-Head- 
ings :  how  ought  I  to  arrange  these  Headings  and  Sub- 
Headings?'  this  process  by  itself  is  a  valuable  mental 
exercise. 

13.  Once  again,  when  these  Cards  have  been  written 
and  Arranged,  they  are  easy  to  refer  to  at  a  moment's 
notice.  TJiey  become  a  possession  for  ever,  and  not  a 
' stereotyped' possession  either:  for  you  can  always  alter, 
add,  or  change,  which  is  a  great  consideration.  If  you 
keep  your  Essays  as  Essays,  it  may  take  you  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  to  find  some  Idea  in  them  if  you  wish  to 
refer  to  it ;  whereas,  by  the  Card-System,  the  Idea  can 
be  found  in  a  minute,  simply  because  it  is  an  Idea  or 
Heading,  and  is  not  dressed  (or  hidden)  in  a  Sentence 
or  Paragraph. 

14.  The  Card-System  would  be  useful  for  every  kind 
of  Book  and  Essay  and  Speech,  and  for  most  kinds  of 
Letters.  It  is  even  a  good  thing  to  use  it  before  an 
important  cojiversation.  Within  the  Book  itself,  it  will 
apply  to  the  Sections,  Chapters,  and  Paragraphs.  Each 
part  of  the  Composition  will  belief  t  by  it,  but  most  of 
all  the  Expression  and  Style.  This  sounds  at  first  a  con- 
tradiction, because  one  would  say  that  this  was  just  the 
part  of  Composition  which  the  Card-System  did  not 
concern  ;  but  it  is  for  this  very  reason  that  the  Card- 
System  helps  Expression.  It  does  everything  else  for 
you  except  the  Expression,  so  that,  when  you  come  to 
this,  it  is  the  only  thing  left  to  be  done,  and  you  can 
devote  every  atom  of  your  energy  to  it.     I  cannot  but 


ADVANTAGES   OF   THE   CARD-SYS7EM        197 

think  that  one  of  the  reasons  why  ordinary  Writings 
and  Speeches  are  so  obscure  is  that  the  Writer  or 
Speaker  has  had  to  be  Collecting  his  Ideas  and  Arrang- 
ing them  and  thinking  out  which  are  the  most  impor- 
tant, at  the  same  time  that  he  is  trying  to  Express 
them  (or  rather  that  he  ought  to  be  trying  to  express 
them)  in  a  way  intelligible  and  interesting  to  the  reader. 
Mow  on  earth  can  an  ordinary  person  succeed  in  doing 
these  many  things  at  once?  Obviously  he  is  setting 
himself  a  Herculean  task.  By  the  Card-System,  he 
would  split  up  this  task  into  parts,  and  would  win  a 
victory  by  conquering  the  enemy  in  detachments. 

Three  words  may  be  said  by  way  of  Summary. 

Firstly,  do  not  economise  Cards  or  paper. 

Secondly,  make  your  Headings  very  brief;  they  need 
only  be  clear  to  yourself;  and  put  each  on  a  separate 
Card. 

Thirdly,  do  not  be  surprised  if  the  System  is  a  little 
awkward  to  handle  at  first.  There  never  yet  was  any 
great  result  achieved  in  History  without  a  slow  and 
steady  and  even  unsuccessful  beginning.  With  time, 
however,  the  System  will  become  easy  and  quick.  You 
must  not  expect  to  reap  the  fruit  till  you  have  sown  the 
seeds  and  watered  the  ground. 


Part    III. 


PART  III.     HOW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:  STYLE. 


CHAPTERS  PAGB 

XXXVI.    Expression    of    Ideas,    and    Style  : 

General  Note:s        .  ...    202 

XXXVII.    Difficulties  and  Faults  in   Expressing 

Ideas  .  .  ...    205 

XXXVIII.  How  TO  Find  Characteristics  of  Expres- 
sion AND  Stvle  :  Matthew  vii.  15-27,  as  an 
Illustration     .  .  .  . 


XXXIX.  Originality    .  .  .  . 

XL.  Force  and  Vigour 

XLI.  Clearness,  and  Simplicity 

XLII.  Brevity  and  Economy 

XLIII.  Appropriateness,  or  Adaptation;  and 
Unity 

XLIV.  Variety 

XLV.  Interest 

XLVI.  Beginnings 

XLVII.  Endings 

XLVI  1 1.  Connexion  and  Cohesion 

XLIX.  Emphasis 

L.  Absence  of  Emphasis  . 

LI.  Parallels 

LIl.  Comparisons,  Analogies,  Etc. 


211 
219 

222 
227 
239 

243 
251 

255 
258 
261 
263 
268 
278 
279 
281 


nOlV  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 


CHAPTERS 

LI  1 1.  Contrasts 

LIV.  Questions 

L\'.  Other  Rheioricai.  Devices 

LVI.  Rhythm 

L\'II.  Chapiers 

LVI  1 1.  Paragraphs 

LIX.  Sentences 

LX.  Grammar,  or  Syntax 

LXI.  Words,  or  Vocabulary    . 

LXII.  Writing,  Spelling,  and  Punctuation 

LXI  1 1.  Revisions 


PAGE 

296 
299 

308 

315 
320 

324 
336 

330 


CHAPTER  XXXVI.     EXPRESSION  OF  IDEAS,  AND 

STYLE :   GENERAL  NOTES. 


The  Expression  of  the  Ideas  (Headings  and  Sub- 
Headings)  cannot  be  finely  distinguished  from  the 
Collection  and  Arrangement  of  Ideas.  Thus  we 
cannot  say  that  the  working  out  of  Comparisons 
and  Contrasts,  for  important  Ideas,  belongs  entirely 
to  the  Collection  of  Sub- Headings  or  to  the  Expression 
of  Headings.  This  is  a  place  where  the  two  Parts  of 
Essay-writing  meet ;  and  this  is  not  the  only  place. 

My  division  of  the  Art  of  Composition  into  two 
main  Parts  is  therefore  convenient  rather  than  accurate: 
the  two  Parts  overlap  and  have  neutral  grounds. 

In  order  that  the  attention  may  be  concentrated 
on  the  Expression  of  Ideas,  the  Collection,  etc.,  must 
already  have  been  finished.  Even  the  Comparisons 
(p.  281),  and  the  Contrasts  (p.  291),  should  have  been 
worked  out  carefully.  Perhaps  the  Card-System  (p.  186) 
has  been  used,  or  a  Scheme  (p.  59),  or  else  the  Card- 
System  first,  and  the  Scheme  afterwards. 

The  Ideas,  then,  we  suppose  to  have  already  been 
Collected,  Selected  (and  Rejected),  Underlined,  and 
Arranged.  They  now  have  to  be  Expressed  ;  and  they 
should  first  be  glanced  through  very  quickly. 

In  Expressing  Ideas  it  is  far  harder  to  separate  the 
processes  in  a  similar  way,  and  to  attend  to  them  one 
at   a   time.     The   next    best    thing   is   to   criticise   the 

202 


EXPRESSrON  OF  IDEAS,   AND  STYLE         203 

Expression  afterwards,  first  with  regard  to  Clearness, 
then  with  regard  to  Appropriateness,  then  Brevity,  etc. 
leaving  Rhythm  till  the  end. 

It  may  be  said  that  there  is,  for  each  Idea,  a  best 
possible  Expression,  according  to 

the  subject ; 

the  class  of  Writing  or  Speech  (e.g.  Book,  Essay, 

light  Article,  etc. — see  p.  16); 
the  readers  or  hearers  ; 
the  Aims  of  the  Writer  or  Speaker  (p.  48). 

Occasionally  (e.g.  in  Shakespeare)  we  come  across 
Expressions  which  we  feel  to  be  the  best  possible  for 
all  purposes  and  conditions,  liut  these  are  rare.  As 
a  rule  there  will  be  a  different  'best  possible',  for 
different  conditions. 

Flaubert,  partly  to  distract  his  thoughts  from  his 
grievous  ailments,  used  to  spend  hours  and  hours  in 
searching  for  the  best  possible,  especially  the  best 
possible  word.  And  there  is  also,  of  course,  the  best 
possible  Sentence,  order  of  words,  Rhythm,  and  so  on. 


204  HO  IV  TO  EXP/^ESS  IDEAS:   STYLE 


A  Rhyme   (continued   from   p.  62),  suggesting   some 
Characteristics  of  Expression  and  Style. 

Style  varies  with  the  subject,  causing  anger,  tear,  or 

smile, 
excitement,  scorn,  calm    reason,   action,  sympathy,  or 

fear, 
(to  the  aim  and  audience  fitted) ;   holds  the  attention, 

and  is  clear. 
Music  and  Balance,  Contrasts,  '  Tropes ',  and  Rhetoric 

should  be  seen. 
Then  Punctuation,  Grammar,  Language,  where  '  Good 

Use'  is  queen. 


CIIAPTKR    XXXVII.     DIFFICULTIES    AND 

FAULTS  IN  EXPRESS- 
ING IDEAS. 


When  an  Essay  is  being  corrected  at  School,  the 
Faults  are  usuall}'  marked  (eg.  underlined)  without  any 
distinction  :  they  are  marked  simply  as  Faults.  But, 
if  the  Writer  is  to  improve,  he  should  find  out  exactly 
zvhere  the  Faitlt  lies,  and  hozv  it  might  have  been  avoided. 
We  have  already  spoken  of  Faults  which  are  Faults 
with  regard  to  the  Ideas.  You  may  have  made  some 
mistake  in  Collecting  Ideas,  in  Selecting  them,  in 
Proportioning  them,  or  in  Arranging  them,  quite  apart 
from  the  way  in  which  you  have  Expressed  them, 
although  even  here  the  Expression  cannot  be  altogether 
kept  out  of  sight. 

But  in  the  following  pages  I  shall  only  speak  of  the 
Faults  which  people  are  apt  to  make  in  Expressing 
Ideas,  apart  from  the  Collection,  etc.,  of  the  Ideas 
themselves.  In  other  words,  in  this  Chapter  will  be 
found  the  mistakes  which  people  might  make  when 
they  have  already  prepared  their  Scheme  of  the  Essay 
or  Speech,  and  now  come  to  turn  it  into  language. 

The  l'"aults  which  I  shall  point  out  will  be  0)ily 
generally  Faults,  and  not  nnivcrsally  so.  For  instance, 
there  may  be  the  P'ault  of  what  is  called  Prolixity,  that 
is  to  say,  where  too  many  words  have  been  put  in  ;  but 
an  apparently  unnecessary  number  of  words  is  not 
always  a  mistake.  Brevity  is  a  virtue  in  Style,  but  not 
when  the  Ideas  are  too  compressed.  There  can  be 
excessive  Brevity.     In  the  same  way,  there  may  be  the 

205 


2o6  now  TO  EXPRESS   WE  AS:    STYLE 

Fault  of  a  want  of  easy  Rh}-thm,  but  easy  Rhythm 
is  not  always  a  gain.  There  are  occasions  when  the 
Rhythm  can  be  too  easy,  when  the  attention  can  be 
fixed  on  the  beautiful  sound,  as  it  often  is  in  the 
reading  of  the  Bible,  so  that  the  sense  and  the  Ideas 
do  not  receive  nearly  enough  attention.  It  would  be 
interesting  to  analyse  the  effect  of  Bible-reading,  so  as 
to  find  out  to  what  extent  the  beauty  of  the  language 
prevents  or  distracts  people  from  paying  attention  to  the 
sense,  in  the  same  way  that  a  beautiful  tune  might 
prevent  people  from  paying  attention  to  the  words  of 
a  song  or  hymn. 

The  following  Faults,  then,  will  be  only  generally 
Faults  :  and,  at  the  outset,  it  is  interesting  to  notice  that 
Aristotle's  definition  of  a  Fault  holds  good  almost 
throughout.  He  said  that  virtue  was  a  mean  betzveen 
tzvo  extremes,  e.g.  that  the  right  degree  of  Courage  was 
somewhere  between  arrant  cowardice  at  one  extreme 
and  foolhardy  rashness  and  thoughtlessness  at  the 
other  ;  that  Economy  was  somewhere  between  mere 
niggardly  stinginess  and  lavish  spendthrift  carelessness. 
Throughout  life,  and  throughout  almost  every  subject, 
it  is  surprising  how  true  this  definition  is. 

Take,  for  instance,  Grammar  or  Syntax  (see  p.  320). 
There  are  certain  rules  of  Grammar  which  it  is  a 
mistake  to  violate.  One  obvious  extreme  would  there- 
fore be  to  ignore  the  rules  of  Grammar  altogether. 
On  the  other  hand,  one  can  go  too  far  in  the  direction 
of  what  one  thinks  to  be  good  Grammar,  and  one  may 
be  fairly  condemned  as  a  pedant  and  an  unpractical 
stickler  for  what  may  be  called  over-correctness.  The 
objection  to  certain  common  constructions,  which  sound 
quite  right  to  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  people  out 


FAULTS  IN  EXPRESSING  IDEAS  207 

of  a  thousand,  is  generally  due  to  an  ignorance  of  the 
principles  of  language.  People  insist  to-day  on  a  rule 
which  held  good  perhaps  fifty  years  ago.  They  forget 
that  language  has  changed  and  is  still  changing.  A 
good  instance  would  be  those  who  insist  on  people 
saying  '  in  the  circumstances ',  and  not  '  under  the 
circumstances'.  This  is  surely  pedantry,  and  the 
defence  of  '■under  the  circumstances'  would  be  first 
of  all  that  it  had  come  to  be  used  by  a  number  of  good 
writers,  without  its  offending  the  ear  of  a  number  of 
able  critics,  and  secondly  that  its  origin  was  quite  easy 
and  natural.  '  Under  the  conditions '  has  alwa)'s  been  a 
proper  construction,*"  and,  <?;/  the  analogy  of  this,]  people 
have  come  to  say  '  under  the  circumstances '  also. 
Those  who  condemn  this  construction  have  not  studied 
the  principles  according  to  which  language  has  de- 
veloped. I  have  seen  a  whole  book  written  on  this 
principle,  namely,  that  whatever  was  a  rule  fifty  years 
ago,  must  still  be  a  rule  to-day. 

Obscurity  and  want  of  Clearness  is  a  great  Fault. 
The  words  may  be  too  technical  for  ordinary  readers 
or  hearers,  or  the  wrong  words  may  have  been  chosen 
(see  p.  325);  or  the  words  may  be  in  the  wrong  order 
(p.  317).  As  to  the  other  extreme,  it  is  a  question 
whether  a  sentence  can  be  too  clear,  whether  the  Idea 
can  be  too  simply  expressed  ;  and,  if  we  once  admit 
that  Carlyle's  writings  produced  a  greater  effect  and 
a  better  effect  than  they  would  have  done  if  they  had 
been  perfectly  clear,  then  we  must  admit  that  for 
certain  purposes  absolute  Clearness  is  a  Fault. 

A  good  illustration  of  Aristotle's  rule  is  that  of  the 

*  Cp.  Latin. 

t  See  '  How  to  Learn  Philology'  (Sonnenschein  and  Co.). 


2o8  now   TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

right  Length.  Excessive  Brevity,  whether  of  Paragraphs 
or  Sentences  or  Words,  is  generally  a  Fault,  and  may  be 
called  Baldness.  Excessive  Length,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  a  still  greater  Fault.  To  have  too  long  Paragraphs, 
too  long  Sentences,  too  long  Words,  is  worse  than 
to  have  these  too  short. 

To  take  another  instance.  There  can  be  too  much 
uniformity  and  Mo7wtony.  If  an  Essay  or  Speech  goes 
on  in  a  similar  Rhythm,  with  the  Sentences  and 
Paragraphs  of  the  same  or  similar  structure  and  length 
throughout,  it  will  be  guilty  of  the  P"ault  of  Monoton}\ 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Writer  or  Speaker  is  per- 
petually changing  his  Rhythm,  and  the  length  of  his 
Sentences  and  Paragraphs,  unnecessarily,  then  he  will 
be  going  to  the  other  extreme  of  needless  Variety. 
Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  '  mean '  must  needs  depend 
on  a  number  of  conditions,  such  as  the  subject,  the 
Writer  or  Speaker,  the  Aim,  and  the  audience.  To 
change  words  unnecessarily  is  a  great  mistake.  On 
the  other  hand.  Tautology  is  to  be  avoided.  In  the  two 
sentences  which  I  have  just  written,  the  reader  would 
do  well  to  decide  for  himself  whether  I  ought  to  have 
changed  the  words  as  I  did,  or  not.  In  the  sentence  from 
Froebel,  on  p.  325,  the  change  is  certainly  unnecessary. 

Want  of  connexion,  either  between  one  Paragraph 
and  another,  or  between  one  Sentence  and  another, 
or  between  the  various  Words  in  a  Sentence,  is  to 
be  avoided.  Can  there  be  at  the  other  extreme  too 
close  a  connexion  within  an  Essay?  It  is  quite  possible 
that  occasionally  a  break  and  a  fresh  departure  are 
necessary,  in  order  to  relieve  the  attention  ;  and  a 
popular  audience  (see  p.  212)  often  needs  an  (apparent) 
absence  of  connexions. 


FAULTS  IN  EXPRESSING  IDEAS  209 

As  to  Comparisons  and  Contrasts,  tlic  commonest 
Fault  is  to  use  too  {c\\.  Sometimes  there  are  none 
at  all,  and  sometimes  those  of  the  wrong  kind  are 
chosen.  On  the  other  hand,  it  would  be  a  mistake  to 
have  too  many  Comparisons  and  Contrasts,  especially 
where  the  sense  would  be  clear  without  them,  and 
where  the  Idea  is  not  to  be  emphasised. 

Repetition,  in  the  same  way,  is  not  to  be  avoided 
altogether  and  is  not  bad  altogether,  especially  where 
Clearness  or  Emphasis  are  helped  by  it,  but  otherwise 
mere  Repetition  for  the  sake  of  filling  up,  i.e.  Repeti- 
tion which  does  not  help  Clearness  or  proper  Emphasis, 
is  an  equally  bad  fault. 

As  to  Emphasis,  again,  it  is  a  mistake  to  have  no 
Emphasis  at  all,  that  is  to  say,  to  present  all  one's 
Ideas  as  if  they  were  equally  (un)important.  A  learned 
pedant  was  once  described  as  having  a  brain  full 
of  millions  of  pieces  of  information  which  were  all  of 
the  same  size.  Such  a  man  had  no  Proportion.  On 
the  other  hand,  Emphasis  may  be  grossly  misused  in 
the  sense  of  being  over-used.  There  is  no  better 
illustration  of  this  than  certain  American  Papers,  which 
have  devoted  so  much  attention  to  Emphasis,  and 
so  many  devices  (such  as  thick  type  and  notes  of 
exclamation  and  underlining)  in  calling  attention  to 
what  did  not  deserve  attention  at  all,  that,  when  they 
come  to  an  Idea  which  really  deserves  attention  and 
Emphasis,  they  have  little  or  no  means  left  b\'  which 
to  call  special  attention  to  it. 

The   devices   which   are    called    Rhetorical    Devices, 

such  as  the  Question,  the  Epigram,  etc.  (see  p.  299),  are 

by  no  means  to  be  avoided,  but  the}'  must  not  be  used 

to    excess,    especiall}-    when    the    subject    (e.g.    quiet 

p 


2IO  HOW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

description)  is  unsuited  for  them.  Balance  again  is 
a  noticeable  feature  of  Rhetoric,  but  Thucydides  is 
fond  of  using  it  to  excess. 

Another  Fault  is  the  use  of  a  harsh  Rhythm,  or  of  an 
inappropriate  Rhythm  :  for  (see  p.  305 )  the  two  things 
are  not  the  same. 

Bad  Ptinctuation,  or  insufficient  Punctuation,  is 
another  fault.  It  is  doubtful  if  excessive  Punctuation 
may  not  be  a  fault  also.  I  am  (probably  rightly) 
accused  of  excessive  Punctuation. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  commonest  Faults  in 
Style  or  Expression.  Others  might  be  worked  out 
by  a  consideration  of  the  Merits  of  Style  (see  p.  204), 
and  by  a  working  out  of  the  Faults  by  contrast  with 
these  Merits. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII.     HOW  TO  FIND  CHARACTER 

ISTICS  OF  EXPRESSION 
AND  STYLE:    MATT.  7. 
15-27,  AS  AN  ILLUSTRA- 
TION. 


Many  Writers  have  earned  a  great  reputation  for 
Style,  and  some  have  undoubtedly  deserved  it.  And 
yet,  when  we  come  to  ask  what  Style  consists  in,  no 
Writer  seems  to  be  able  to  tell  us.  Put  a  piece  of  bad 
Style  before  a  critic,  and  he  will  sa)^  that  it  is  bad  ;  he 
may  even  say  ivJierc  it  is  bad.  Again,  put  a  piece  of 
good  Style  before  him,  and  he  will  say  that  it  is  good. 
But  ask  him  exactly  ivJiy  it  is  good,  and  he  will  pro- 
bably be  at  a  loss.  The  attempts  of  so  many  who  have 
a  good  St}'le  themselves,  to  tell  others  the  secret  of 
it  would  be  lamentable  if  they  were  not  so  ridiculous. 
I  once  read  a  long-winded  Article  in  flowing  English 
entitled  "  Style  " ;  after  a  great  deal  of  inflated  wordi- 
ness, the  Writer  eventually  decided  that  St}-le  was 
something  which  could  not  be  described. 

Up  to  the  present  moment  I  have  never  come  across 
any  Writer  who  gives  clear  instruction  as  to  how  to 
find  out  the  characteristics  of  an}'one's  style,  and  this 
Chapter  must  therefore  be  a  somewhat  crude  attempt, 
seeing  that  it  is,  as  far  as  I  know,  the  first  attempt  in 
this  direction. 

Let  the  Reader  take  a  passage  from  the  "  Sermon  on 
the  Mount",  and  let  him  try  to  find  out  for  himself 
what    are    the    characteristics    of    its    Expression    and 


212  now   TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:   STYLE 

Style ;  let  him  write  them  down  as  separate  Headings, 
one  under  the  other. 

15  Beware  of   false  prophets,  which   come  to   you  in  sheep's 

16  clothing-,  but  inwardly  are  ravening  wolves.  By  their  fruits 
ye  shall  know  them.     Do  men  gather  grapes  of  thorns,  or  figs 

17  of  thistles?     Even  so  every  good   tree   bringeth   forth   good 

18  fruit;  but  the  corrupt  tree  bringeth  forth  evil  fruit.  A  good 
tree  cannot  bring  forth  evil  fruit,  neither  can  a  corrupt  tree 

19  bring  forth  good  fruit.     Every   tree   that  bringeth   not  forth 

20  good  fruit  is  hewn  down,  and  cast  into  the  fire.     Therefore  by 

21  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.  Not  every  one  that  saith  unto 
me,  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ;  but 
he   that   doeth   the   will  of  my   Father  which  is   in  heaven. 

22  Many  will  say  to  me  in  that  day.  Lord,  Lord,  did  we  not 
prophesy  by   thy   name,   and   by  thy  name   cast   out   devils, 

23  and  by  thy  name  do  many  mighty  works?  And  then  will  I 
profess  unto  them,   I   never  knew  you  :  depart  from  me,  ye 

24  that  work  iniquity.  Every  one  therefore  which  heareth  these 
words  of  mine,  and  doeth  them,  shall  be  likened  unto  a  wise 

25  man,  which  built  his  house  upon  the  rock :  and  the  rain 
descended,  and  the  floods  came,  and  the  winds  blew,  and  beat 
upon  that  house  ;  and   it  fell  not  :  for  it  was  founded  upon 

26  the  rock.  And  every  one  that  heareth  these  words  of  mine, 
and  doeth  them  not,  shall  be  likened  unto  a  foolish  man,  which 

27  built  his  house  upon  the  sand  :  and  the  rain  descended,  and 
the  floods  came,  and  the  winds  blew,  and  smote  upon  that 
house  ;  and  it  fell :  and  great  was  the  fall  thereof. 


The  reader  will  doubtless  find  the  task  very  hard. 
He  probably  will  not  have  any  scientific  method  of 
procedure,  and,  when  I  tell  him  that  the  first  thing  to 
do  is  to  take  away  the  Ideas,  and  to  leave  them  out 
of  the  question  altogether,  he  will  probably  be  very 
much  surprised.  Nevertheless  it  is  so  :  if  he  wishes 
to  criticise  Style  as  Style,  he  must  not  consider  the 
Ideas  themselves  for  a  moment :  t/iey  may  (to  a  great 
extent)  be  criticised  apart. 


CHARACTERISTICS   OF  N.T.   EXPRESSION      213 

Let  us  then  sec  what  are  the  Ideas  of  this  passage,  or 
what  is  the  Idea  of  it,  and  then  we  shall  be  able  to 
concentrate  our  attention  on  finding  out  how  the  Idea 
or  Ideas  are  Expressed.  We  shall  therefore  have  to 
analyse  the  piece,  and  write  the  abstract  of  it,  before 
we  begin  to  examine  into  the  Style. 

The  gist  of  this  piece  is  the  answer  to  the  question, 
'Who  are  the  really  good?'  This,  in  the  language  of 
the  Authorised  and  Revised  Versions,  would  be,  '  Who 
belong  to  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven?',  which  conveys 
quite  a  different  meaning  to  most  ordinary  people. 
This  then  will  be  the  Idea  of  the  piece,  and  the  answer 
to  the  question  is,  that  the  really  good  are  those  who 
are  good  in  their  inmost  nature,  at  their  foundations,  as 
it  were,  so  that  evcr\-thing  that  they  do,  and  everj'thing 
that  they  produce,  is  bound  to  be  good  also. 

The  reader,  having  now  found  the  Idea,  can  come 
to  see  better  how  it  has  been  Expressed.  He  can  now 
try  once  again  to  find  the  Characteristic  of  Style,  asking 
himself  what  is  it  that  makes  the  Expression  of  this 
Idea  so  excellent  in  this  passage.  For  in  this  passage 
a  large  number  of  the  excellencies  of  Style  are  com- 
bined, that  is  to  say  in  the  original  Greek. 

In  case  the  reader  should  omit  to  notice  that  the 
language  is  simple,  I  offer  a  Version  in  simple  English, 
from  "  The  Teaching  of  Jesus  To-day  "  (Grant  Richards). 

Be  on  your  guard  against  all  the  pretended  representatives  of 
God,  who  come  to  you  looking  like  sheep,  when  all  the  time  they 
are  really  hungry  wolves  :  it  is  by  what  they  produce  that  you 
must  class  them  ;  for  instance,  you  don't  get  bunches  of  grapes  off 
thorn-bushes,  or  figs  off  thistles,  do  you?  It  is  the  very  nature  of 
good  trees  to  produce  good  fruit,  and  of  rotten  trees  to  produce  bad 
fruit :  it  is  as  impossible  for  a  good  tree  to  produce  bad  fruit,  as  it 
is  for  a  rotten  tree  to  produce  good  fruit ;  you  know  this  is  so,  for 


2  14  ^^OIV   TO  L\\-/-A'ESS  IDEAS:   STYLE 

the  trees  which  do  not  produce  good  fruit  you  cut  down  to  be 
burnt.  Yes,  it  is  by  what  they  produce  that  you  must  class 
them. 

It  is  not  every  one  who  goes  on  caUing  me  'Master'  that  will 
enter  into  God's  unseen  world  :  they  only  will  enter  in  who  do 
what  pleases  my  unseen  Father.  When  the  day  comes,  many 
will  say  to  me :  '  Master,  Master,  surely  we  called  ourselves 
"Christians"?  Surely  we  preached  as  "Christians",  surely  as 
"Christians"  we  were  kind  to  those  that  were  ill,  surely  as 
"Christians"  we  did  many  wonderful  things?'  Then  I  shall 
speak  straight  out  to  them  and  tell  them  :  '  You  have  had  no 
kind  of  connection  with  me  :  away  from  me,  you  who  are  sinful 
in  what  you  do'  Any  one,  then,  who  listens  to  what  I  say  and 
also  does  what  I  say,  may  be  compared  to  a  sensible  man  who 
had  built  his  house  on  rock  :  afterwards,  when  the  rain  came 
down  and  the  rivers  were  flooded  and  the  winds  blew  and  beat 
against  that  house,  it  did  not  fall,  for  its  foundation  was  rock  :  but 
any  one  who  listens  to  what  I  say,  and  does  not  also  do  what 
I  say,  may  be  compared  to  a  foolish  man  who  had  built  his  house 
on  sand  :  afterwards,  when  the  rain  came  down  and  the  rivers 
were  flooded  and  the  winds  blew  and  beat  against  that  house, 
it  fell  :  and  its  fall  was  terrible. 


Let  US  notice,  by  way  of  preface,  that  the  speaker 
knew  his  subject  thoroughly,  and  of  course  had  had 
practical  experience  in  it.     It  was  a  part  of  his  very 

self. 

He  also  spoke  in  simple  and  graphic  language :  it  is 
very  seldom  abstract  (see  p.  231).  Throughout,  it  is 
personal,  and  generally  speaks  of  persons  as  doing  or 
saying  something  ;  notice  especially  verse  21. 

Not  only  did  he  know  his  subject  and  speak  in  simple 
language  (which  I  have  tried  to  represent  on  p.  2 1 3),  but 
he  also  knew  human  nature  and  the  motives  which 
influence  it,  and  the  nature  and  the  motives  of  his 
hearers  in  particular. 


CHARACTERISTICS   OF  N.T.   EXPRESSION      215 

His  Ideas  were  of  course  all  that  Ideas  should  be  ; 
but  it  is  not  of  these  that  we  shall  speak  here.  Here 
we  shall  speak  only  of  the  Expression  and  Style. 

(i)  But  observe  how  the  one  Idea  is  emphasised, 
because  it  is  so  important. 

(2)  The  next  thing  which  strikes  us  is  the  Clearness 
and  Simplicity  (see  above). 

(3)  Then  there  is  the  Interesting  Beginning.  The 
word  "Beware"  would  itself  arouse  attention,  and 
the  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount "  starts  with  the  words 
"Blessed  are  the  poor",  which  (sec  p.  258)  must  have 
forced  people  to  listen.     The  Ending  is  Impressive. 

(4)  In  the  first  verse  (15)  we  also  find  a  Contrast,  or 
Exclusion.  Instead  of  saying  directly  who  the  really 
good  arc,  he  says  who  they  are  not :  they  are  not  those 
who  pretend  to  be  God's  representatives.  '  Contrast '  is 
also  seen  in  verse  17,  where  the  good  tree  and  the 
corrupt  tree  are  opposed  to  one  another.  Cp.  verse  21, 
and  again  verse  24  foil.,  where  the  house  on  rock  is 
contrasted  with  the  house  on  sand. 

(5)  In  these  last  verses  (from  24  to  27)  the  Balance 
and  Parallelism  is  perfect.  Each  clause  about  the 
house  on  sand  corresponds  to  a  clause  about  the  house 
on  rock. 

(6)  Comparisons  and  Metaphors  abound,  and  they  are 
those  which  the  particular  hearers  \\'ould  understand. 
In  fact  they  were  chiefly  taken  from  their  dail}'  life  or 
from  the  surrounding  scencr}'.  The  sheep  and  the  wolves, 
the  fruit-trees,  the  grapes  and  the  thorns,  the  figs  and 
the  thistles,  the  cutting  down  of  trees,  the  building  of 
the  house  upon  rock  or  upon  sand,  the  rain,  the  flood, 
and  the  wind — all  these  were  familiar  to  those  who 
were   present.      The   principle  was    to   start   with    that 


^i6  HOW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

which  was  familiar  to  them,  and   in  the  hght  of  this 
to  explain  that  which  w^as  less  familiar  to  them. 

(7)  The  Comparisons  involve  a  good  deal  of  Detail, 
but  notice  how  the  details  all  help  to  make  a  picture. 
The  Writer  or  Speaker  should  never  avoid  detail  and 
concrete  instances,  so  long  as  they  throw  light  on  the 
important  aspects  of  the  subject  in  hand. 

(8)  In  verse  i6  and  verse  22,  we  have  the  use  of 
the  Question  rather  than  the  Statement :  see  p.  296. 

(9)  In  verse  17  and  verse  18  we  have  Repetition,  and 
so  again  in  verse  20.  Either  the  Idea  is  repeated  in 
different  words,  or  the  very  words  are  repeated. 

(10)  In  verse  19  and  in  verse  23,  and  again  in  verse 
27,  there  is  an  appeal  to  a  Motive,  and  that  Motive 
is  fear.  It  is  one  of  those  features  of  the  speaking 
of  Jesus  which  are  rather  apt  to  be  ignored,  but  un- 
doubtedly Jesus  did  appeal  to  fear  among  other  Motives. 
The  general  principle,  however,  is  that  he  constantly 
appealed  to  some  human  Motive  or  other. 

(11)  In  the  whole  Section  we  have  the  principle  of 
Variety  well  illustrated.  There  is  only  one  main  Idea, 
but  it  is  repeated  again  and  again,  and  approached  from 
differe)it  points  of  vieiv. 

(12)  These  are  only  some  of  the  features  of  Style. 
Of  the  Rhythm,  the  Grammar,  and  Punctuation,  and 
so  on,  we  cannot  speak  here  because  the  Greek  original 
is  unfamiliar  to  most  readers ;  but  the  Authorised 
Version  has  a  splendid  Rhythm  and  swing  throughout 
the  New  Testament. 

The  adva?itage  of  taking  this  New  Testament  in- 
stance is  not  only  that  it  illustrates  so  many  of  the 
excellencies   of   Expression    and   Style,  but   also   that 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  N.T.  EXPRESSION     217 

It  is  familiar  to  the  readers ;  in  fact  most  of  them 
know  the  Authorised  or  Revised  Version  of  it  by 
heart.  Besides  this,  the  Ideas  are  perfect,  and  indeed  are 
Ideas  which  everyone  ought  to  know,  and  Ideas  which 
— very  few  people  take  the  sh'ghtest  notice  of  in  daily 
life.  How  many  persons  judge  things  by  what  they 
produce,  rather  than  by  the  popular  opinion  and 
judgment  about  these  things  ?  About  one  person  in 
a  thousand. 

And  another  reason  why  this  passage  is  so  good, 
as  a  lesson  in  Style,  is  that,  however  steadily  people 
refuse  to  carry  out  in  action  the  Ideas  which  appear 
here,  yet  at  any  rate  they  profess  the  greatest  respect 
for  them. 

Besides  being  a  passage  which  illustrates  very  many 
points,  and  which  is  familiar,  and  which  is  worth  study- 
ing for  the  sake  of  its  Ideas  alone,  and  which  is 
respected  by  the  majority  of  mankind,  there  is  this 
further  advantage  that  near  this  passage,  that  is  to  say, 
in  the  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount "  before  we  come  to  this 
Ending,  there  are  many  more  passages  which  can  be 
treated  in  the  same  wa}-. 

Last  of  all,  the  Verses  here  are  a  good  instance 
because  they  \\ere  spoken  to  a  popular  audience. 
Supposing,  for  the  moment,  that  the  "  Sermon  on  the 
Mount"  was  spoken  all  at  once,  then  it  most  decidedly 
was  the  greatest  sermon  that  has  ever  been  preached, 
though  not  by  any  means  the  longest.  Almost  from 
beginning  to  end  it  was  probably  understood  even  by  the 
most  stupid  people  in  the  crowd.  I  do  not  think  that 
this  applies  to  the  Authorised  (or  even  to  the  Revised) 
Version,  which  is  not  good  as  a  mere  rendering  of  the 
sense  of  the  Greek.      How  could  a   161 1   Version   be 


2i8  HOW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

expected  to  be  so?     But  the  original  Greek  was  most 
extraordinarily  simple  and  easy  to  '  see  through'. 

At  the  same  time  the  Sermon,  and  especially  this 
Ending,  had  in  it  a  greal  deal  that  would  give  the  more 
intelligent  and  educated  people  food  for  reflection.  It 
is  a  piece  of  Composition  which  must  appeal  to  abso- 
lutely every  class  of  readers  and  hearers. 


CHAPTER    XXXIX.     ORIGINALITY. 


For  the  purposes  of  this  Chapter,  I  shall  treat  a  thing 
as  no  less  Original  because  it  has  already  been  found  out 
by  someone  else  :  in  other  words  I  shall  include  under 
the  word  '  Original '  whatever  the  Writer  has  worked 
out  for  himself,  whatever  he  has  made  his  very  own, 
even  if  others  have  thought  of  it  first.  I  am  compelled 
to  include  here  Originality  in  Ideas  as  well  as  in  the 
Expression  of  Ideas  :  the  two  departments  (cp.  p.  202) 
cannot  be  separated. 

In  a  still  wider  sense,  I  might  almost  include  any- 
thing which  a  person  understands  so  thoroughly  that  he 
can  describe  it  clearly  to  an}'onc  else,  and  give  good 
Comparisons  and  Contrasts ;  about  which  he  can 
answer  questions  satisfactorily,  and  of  which  he  has 
a  definite  picture  in  his  mind's  eye.  This  is  not 
Originalit}',  but  is  very  near  akin  to  it. 

The  first  requisite  is  that  a  person  should  see  a  thing 
clearly ;  he  must  not  merely  be  able  to  say  so  many 
words,  but  he  must  have  a  clear  view  of  the  Idea. 
And  this  will  often  mean  that  he  must  have  thought 
over  the  Idea,  looking  at  it  from  every  point  of  view ; 
but  this  does  not  yet  make  Originality. 

Nor  has  a  person  quite  become  Original  when  he  has 
made  his  own  inferences,  nor  even  when  he  has  criticised 
the  Idea  and  formed  his  judgment  of  it.  There  is  some- 
thing needed  besides,  and  Originality  seems  especially 
to  be  the  coinbiuiiig  of  things  in  a  nezu  icay;  for  example, 
finding  a  link  between  two  things  which  before  had 
seemed  to  be  unconnected. 

219 


220  BOJV  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

Originality  in  the  process  of  Essay- Writing  or 
Speaking  will  come  in  again  and  again,  if  the  Essay 
or  Speech  be  prepared  according  to  my  method.  In 
the  Collecting  of  Ideas,  in  the  Selecting  of  them,  in  the 
Underlining,  in  the  Arranging,  and  in  the  working 
out  and  choosing  of  Comparisons  and  Contrasts, 
Originality  will  constantly  be  needed.  For  instance, 
the  Essay-Writer  or  Speaker  will  constantly  have  to 
appeal  to  his  own  judgment  (see  pp.  167,  170)  and  to 
say  what  he  thinks  best. 

With  regard  to  the  Arranging  of  Ideas,  the  whole 
treatment  of  the  subject  may  call  for  Originality. 
Let  me  take  one  example.  If  we  are  to  consider 
what  effects  Geography  has  had  upon  English  History, 
we  have  to  choose  between  three  methods  of  treat- 
ment :  either  we  can  take  the  divisions  of  Geography 
(see  p.  107),  and  consider  the  effects  of  each,  or  we 
can  consider  the  History,  and  see  how  far  it  was 
affected  by  Geography,  or,  thirdly,  we  can  combine 
these  two  methods ;  and  perhaps  this  would  be  the 
best  way :  we  might  begin  by  pointing  out  certain 
features  of  the  Geography  (such  as  the  Coast  Line, 
the  many  Rivers,  the  Variety  of  Climate  and  Scenery, 
the  Gulf  Stream,  the  Coal  Mines,  and  the  Metal 
Mines),  and  we  might  estimate  the  effects  of  all 
these  features,  and  then  we  might  consider  the 
History,  and  see  how  far  it  has  been  due  to  these 
and  other  causes.  By  this  means  we  should  be  able  to 
repeat  the  most  important  Ideas,  from  different  points 
of  view.     We  should  ensure  Variety. 

Originality  is  demanded  in  nearly  every  branch  of 
Expression  and  Style.  To  find  out  the  clearest  way 
of  P^xpressing   something,   to  find    out   how  to    make 


ORIGINALITY  221 

the  Exprcssii>n  iiitcrc.stinL,^  and  (if  ncccssar)')  emphatic, 
to  decide  how  far  there  should  be  Variet}-,  in  fact  to 
use  )-our  coninion  sense  cver}'\vhere — all  this  gives 
ample  play  for  Originality.  For  you  have  to  perpetually 
appeal  to  }-our  own  ingenuity  and  }'our  own  judg- 
ment, and  yet  at  the  same  time  to  remember  that 
you  are  submitting  what  you  do  to  the  judgment  of 
others  also. 


CHAPTER  XL.     FORCE  AND  VIGOUR. 

(See  further  Chapter  XLIX.) 


Few  words  are  commoner,  in  reference  to  an  Author's 
Style,  than  these  words  Force  and  Vigour.  How 
often  we  read,  "His  Style  is  Forcible  and  Vigorous", 
or,  on  the  other  hand,  "  His  Style  is  tame  and  lifeless". 
And  yet  no  one  has  adequately  described  what  Force 
and  Vigour  are.  A  critic  can  tell  you  whether  the 
quality  is  present  in  a  given  piece  of  Writing  or  in 
a  given  Speech,  or  whether  it  is  absent.  But  exactly 
in  what  the  quality  consists  he  does  not  say :  still  less 
does  he  give  practical  advice  as  to  how  the  quality 
can  be  acquired.  It  is  a  most  mysterious  element 
in  Style,  and  as  yet  we  have  not  come  very  much  nearer 
to  a  definition  of  it  than  we  have  to  a  definition  of, 
let  us  say,  life  itself. 

Nevertheless  there  are  certain  features  without  which 
Force  and  Vigour  can  hardly  exist.  We  cannot  say 
that  they  actually  are  Force  and  Vigour,  but  at  any 
rate  they  are  essential  to  it:  they  are  a  sine  qua  non. 
See  the  footnote  to  p.  i6i. 

First  among  these  comes  personal  conviction  and 
earnestness:  the  Author  or  Speaker  must  have  a 
motive,  and  must  be  deeply  convinced  of  the  truth 
of  what  he  is  saying.  This  does  not  mean  that  he 
must  speak  the  truth ;  for  thousands  of  people  have 
been    deeply    convinced    of    the    truth    of    what    is    in 


FORCE   AND    VIGOUR  223 

reality  absolutely  false  :  it  merely  means  a  certain 
object  in  view,  and  a  convn'ction  as  to  the  Ideas 
being  right. 

Now  a  man  can  scarcely  be  convinced  about  Ideas 
unless  he  has  a  clear  notion  of  what  these  Ideas  are ! 
To  take  an  extreme  case,  if  a  man  did  not  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  a  piece  of  Hebrew,  he  could 
scarcely — apart  from  Translations,  etc. — be  rcallj  in 
earnest  about  the  Ideas  in  that  Hebrew ;  and  so  Force 
and  Vigour  can  hardly  be  found  except  where  the 
Author  clearly  understands  the  Ideas  and  (see  p.  231) 
has  a  picture  of  them  in  his  mind's  eye.  Yet  some 
of  the  most  Vigorous  Authors  have  been  very  far  from 
clear  in  the  way  they  have  Expressed  their  Ideas.  A 
few  instances  will  be  sufficient.  Thucydides,  Tacitus, 
Carlyle,  and  Browning  would  be  four  Authors,  out  of 
many,  whose  Force  and  Vigour  are  indisputable,  but 
whose  Expression  is  apt  to  be  very  obscure. 

As  a  rule,  however,  Vigour  is  found  where  the  words 
are  Clear,  Simple,  Dignified,  and  Striking. 

The  Concrete  Instance  is  often  more  '  vigorous '  than 

the  General  Statement :  even  details  and  small  touches 

(see  p.  216)  may  help  to  give  vigour.     Thus  contrast — 

'  Sailors  like  their  special  luxuries  * 

with 

'  Jack  loves  his  baccy  and  his  grog '. 

Again,  how  much  more  forcible  than 

'  a  short  moment ' 
is  the  pictorial  touch, 

'the  twinkling  of  an  c\'e'. 

One  general  feature  besides  this  is  that  there  should 
be  no  ivastc  of  words :    Brevity  is  not  always  the  same 


224  HOJV  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

as  Vigour,  but  the  two  generally  go  hand  in  hand. 
In  fact,  Vigorous  Style  may  often  omit  words  which 
seem  almost  to  be  necessary,  so  that,  if  one  put  in 
these  words,  the  Vigour  would  be  almost  gone. 

Suggestiveness  is  an  instance  of  this.  Professor 
Barrett  Wendell,  in  his  excellent  Book  on  English 
Composition,  hints  that  Force  is  suggestive  :  that  it 
implies  rather  than  expresses.  You  feel  that  there 
is  something  kept  in  reserve.  The  Expression  is 
striking,  and  leaves  the  reader  or  hearer  to  work 
out  something  for  himself.  The  following  quotation 
seemed  to  me  to  be  an  instance  of  Suggestiveness  :  I 
do  not  know  how  far  it  will  be  considered  Forcible. 

"  Just  before  going  to  bed,  I  do  not  like  to  eat  lobster 
salad  or  to  read  about  prisoners  in  Siberia." 

Force  and  Vigour  nearly  always  attract  the  attention 
somehow  or  other,  and  striking  Comparisons  (including 
Metaphors),  which  appeal  to  the  readers  or  hearers, 
will  often  of  themselves  give  Force.  One  cannot  help 
feeling  that  a  little  child's  remark  about  the  effects  of 
influenza,  namely,  that  it  made  her  legs  'giddy',  was 
very  Forcible  :  it  must  appeal  to  what  every  individual 
will  understand  and  feel  for  himself. 

And  Vigour  will  differ  according  to  the  class  of 
Composition,  as  well  as  according  to  the  readers  or 
hearers,  and  according  to  the  Aims  of  the  Writer 
or  Speaker.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  there  is  a  certain 
Appropriateness.  There  are  certain  Sentences  which 
would  be  Vigorous  wherever  we  found  them ;  there 
are  others  which  are  only  Vigorous  i)i  certain  Con- 
texts;  so  that  there  are  occasions  when  Humour  may 
be  Vigorous,  and  when  nothing  else  would  have 
so    much    Force    as    an    appeal    to    the    sense    of   the 


FORCE  A. YD    VIGOUR  225 

ridiculous.  Even  Bathos  itself  (see  p.  260)  may  be 
tlie  most  Forcible  form  of  Expression  under  certain 
conditions,  e.g.  for  purposes  of  ridicule. 

A  Sentence  or  a  piece  of  Writing  cannot  be  properly 
P^orcible  if  all  the  rest  of  the  Sentences  and  Paragraphs 
are  equally  Forcible  ;  that  is  to  say,  when  Vigour 
and  Force  are  not  necessary  (for  instance,  in  a  quiet 
description),  there  they  should  not  be  used ;  they 
should  be  reserved  for  passages  where  they  are  really 
needed,  or  else  they  will  lose  their  effect,  when  we 
come  to  these  passages.  As  we  shall  see  in  the  case 
of  Emphasis,  which  is  closely  related  to  Vigour,  a 
passage  is  much  more  emphatic  if  whatever  surrounds 
it  is  unemphatic  (see  p.  278).  A  light  shows  far  more 
clearly  when  it  is  surrounded  by  darkness,  and  a 
person  would  never  appear  so  truly  Vigorous  among 
those  who  were  no  less  Vigorous  than  himself,  as 
among  those  who  were  dying  in  a  hospital  or  those 
who  were  dead  on  a  battle-field  ;  here  as  elsewhere 
there  must  be  Contrast. 

Another  element  is  the  Rhythm,  which  will  of 
course  depend  largely  upon  the  length  and  the  order 
of  JVords.  For  the  order  of  Words  and  the  Rhythm, 
as  helping  to  give  Force  and  Vigour,  the  New 
Testament  is  far  the  best  study.  The  reader  should 
lake  some  of  the  most  Forcible  Sentences,  and  change 
the  Words,  and  the  order  of  Words,  and  the  Rhythm. 
If  he  does  this,  he  will  often  find  that  the  Force  and 
Vigour  almost  completely  disappear. 

There  is  no  space  here  to  follow  out  this  very 
important  aspect  of  Vigour,  but  I  hope  to  follow  it 
out  in  subsequent  years  ;  at  present  I  can  only  refer 
to  the  Chapters  on  the  Sentence  and  on  Kh)thm. 


226  HOW   TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

As  I  said  above,  Force  and  Vigour  are  closely 
related  to  Emphasis  (for  which  see  p.  268).  A 
Sentence  which  is  Forcible  and  Vigorous  can  scarcely 
fail  to  be  Emphatic  also.  But  the  converse  is  not 
necessarily  true,  and  this  is  why  I  have  treated 
Emphasis  separately.  For  Emphasis  may  be  obtained 
by  means  of  sheer  Repetition,  and  Repetition  may  be 
quite  as  different  from  Force  and  Vigour  as  five  tame 
taps  with  a  hammer  are  different  from  a  single 
energetic  tap.  Nevertheless,  the  ultimate  effects  may 
be  very  similar ;  the  stone  may  be  hollowed  in  much 
the  same  way  by  the  frequent  dropping  of  water  and 
by  the  sudden  blow  of  the  steel. 

It  is  almost  needless  to  add  that  Force  and  Vigour 
are  often  felt  merely  because  the  Emotions  are  appealed 
to  ;  and  it  would  not  be  waste  of  time  to  work  out  a  list 
of  those  Emotions  which  are  {a)  more  or  less  common  to 
all  humanity  (e.g.  lo\e,  indignation  and  anger),  {b)  more 
or  less  common  to  certain  Classes  or  Groups  (e.g.,  in 
women,  pity,  and  the  love  of  personalities ;  in  English- 
men, pluck  and  obstinacy).  For  some  words  will  be 
Forcible  for  all  mankind,  others  more  especially  so  for 
a  certain  Group,  for  example  for  those  of  a  certain 
Nation  or  for  those  of  a  certain  age.  The  Emotion 
which  is  to  be  excited  must  be  appropriate  to  the 
subject,  to  the  Aim  of  the  Writer  or  Speaker,  and  to 
the  reader  or  hearer  as  well. 


CPIAPTER    XLI.     CLEARNESS,  AND   SIMPLICITY. 


*  Clearness'  is  hard  to  separate  from  '•Simplicity',  as 
Bain  should  have  reaUsed :  see  p.  177.  But  the  follow- 
ing may  be  one  difference.  We  saw  (on  p.  226)  that  we 
could  scarcely  have  Force  and  Vigour  without  Emphasis, 
but  that  we  could  have  Emphasis  without  Force  and 
Vigour  (e.g.  by  mere  Repetition  of  the  words).  So,  here, 
we  can  scarcely  have  true  Simplicity  without  Clearness, 
but  we  can  have  Clearness  without  Simplicity.  A  clear 
Sentence  may  be  ver)'  long  and  very  florid  and  orna- 
mental :  Juvenal  is  often  clear  without  being  simple. 
I'ossibl}'  the  word  Precision  includes  the  two  ideas. 

The  words  which  one  writes  should  be  something 
more  than  Clear :  they  should  be  actually  transparoit. 
There  are  occasions  when  one  wishes  to  express  a  thing 
somewhat  obscurely  (as  Carlyle  did),  but  they  are  ex- 
ceptional. As  a  rule  the  words  should  be  so  clear  that 
not  only  do  they  have  only  one  meaning,  one  single  mean- 
ing, but  that  they  also  show  this  meaning  immediately ; 
the  reader  or  hearer  should  never  have  to  pause  and 
ask  himself  '  What  does  this  mean  ? '  or  '  Which  Idea 
does  this  mean  ? '  The  reader  of  a  certain  orator's 
Speeches  frequently  has  to  ask  himself  one  of  these 
two  questions,  especially  the  second.  Not  unfrequenth- 
he  asks  himself  yoX.  a  third  question,  '  Does  this  mean 
anything  at  all  ? '    This  is  perhaps  the  severest  criticism 

227 


^-8  HOW   TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:   STYLE 

of  a  Writer  or  Speaker  which  a  reader  or  hearer  can 
ever  offer. 

The  difficulty  of  being  clear  is  prodigious.  What 
a  Writer  writes,  and  what  a  Speaker  speaks,  may 
may  be  perfectly  clear  to  Jiimself,  but  it  does  not  in  the 
least  follow  that  it  will  be  clear  or  even  intelligible  to 
the  audience.  I  do  not  doubt  for  a  moment  that  the 
following  passage  was  clear  to  Herbert  Spencer  when 
he  wrote  it,  but  I  very  much  doubt  if  the  ordinary 
reader  would  understand  it,  at  any  rate  in  less  than 
three  readings.  It  is  from  page  58  of  his  "Sociology". 
N.B.  Herbert  Spencer's  punctuation  is  seldom  careful. 

"The  reader  doubtless  anticipates  the  analogy.  What  Bio- 
"graphy  is  to  Anthropology,  History  is  to  Sociology— History, 
"  I  mean,  as  commonly  conceived.  The  kind  of  relation  which  the 
"  sayings  and  doings  that  make  up  the  ordinary  account  of  a  man's 
"life,  bear  to  an  account  of  his  bodily  and  mental  evolution, 
"structural  and  functional,  is  like  the  kind  of  relation  borne 
"  by  that  narrative  of  a  nation's  actions  and  fortunes  its  historian 
"gives  us,  to  a  description  of  its  institutions,  regulative  and 
"  operative,  and  the  ways  in  which  their  structures  and  functions 
"gradually  established  themselves." 

The  more  learned  a  writer  is,  the  more  he  has  read 
and  studied  and  confined  Jiivisclf  to,  his  special  subject, 
the  less  he  is  able  to  write  on  it  with  transparency, 
that  is  to  say  as  a  general  rule.  I  find  that  a  certain 
Scientist's  earlier  works  were  far  clearer  than  his  later 
works,  which  are  so  full  of  abstruse  Technical  Terms 
that  the  ordinary  reader  cannot  grasp  the  sense  at  all. 

Another  Quotation  will  illustrate  the  obscurity  of 
writing  which  is  full  of  Technical  Terms.  These 
Technical  Terms  were  quite  clear  to  the  writer :  in 
fact,  he  probably  could  not  have  expressed  his   Ideas 


CLEARNESS,   AND   SIMPLICITY  229 

otherwise,  at  least  without  very  great  effort.     But  for 
the  f^eneral  reader  the  Ideas  are  shrouded  in  obscurity. 

"  In  a  similar  way,  in  America,  the  shock  of  pohtical  thought 
"brought  about  in  the  interior  of  each  of  the  thirteen  colonies, 
"by  the  delegation  of  important  prerogatives  to  a  new-fashioned 
"  central  government,  rendered  the  criticism  of  that  Government, 
"of  its  functions,  and  of  its  rights  and  duties,  as  natural  as, 
"in  other  times  and  circumstances,  was  the  unquestioned  sub- 
"  mission  to  the  claims  of  any  Government  believed  to  be  duly 
"  autlioriscd. 

"The  origin  of  a  disposition  to  reject  the  pretensions  of 
"  Government  to  occupy  any  field  of  action  it  chooses,  without 
"accountability  to  any  other  standard  than  the  apparent  demands 
"of  the  moment,  must  be  souglit  chiclTy  in  the  first  of  these 
"  causes." 

The  chief  reason  why  these  writers  fail  to  be  clear 
is  that  they  have  seldom,  if  ever,  practised  Clearness 
as  a  special  Exercise.  One  of  the  best  Exercises  is 
the  turning  of  a  piece  of  English  into  Latin  or  Greek 
Prose,  where  Clearness  is  insisted  on  :  for  the  Latin  or 
Greek  must  have  one  transparent  meaning,  and  only 
one.  Cases  are  well  known  of  clergymen  and  public 
Speakers  who,  in  order  to  ensure  Clearness,  have  first 
written  their  thoughts  in  Latin,  and  then  have  translated 
them  into  English. 

A  second  cause  of  Obscurit}',  in  iiddition  to  the 
excessive  'learning'  and  technicality  of  the  Writer 
or  Speaker,  w^ould  be  that  he  has  not  his  Ideas  defi- 
nitely before  him  in  his  mind's  eye :  he  has  not  pictured 
to  himself  the  '  action  '  of  which  he  is  writing.  These 
mental  pictures  are  indispensable.  How  far  they  differ 
from  the  Abstract  phrases  with  which  Books  and 
Reviews  are  crowded  can  be  judged  from  the  follow- 
ing two  passages,  put  side  by  side. 


230  J/0  IP'  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

"  The  qucintitative  value  "  It    seems    to    be    true 

"of  animated  life,  as  a  geo-  that,  the  smaller  the  ani- 

"  logical  agency,  seems  to  mals  are  in  bulk,  the  more 

"  be  inversely  as  the  volume  effect    they   have    on    the 

" of theindividual organism"  'Geology'    of    a    country, 

(Marsh,    "The     Earth    as  because    of    their    greater 

Modified   by   Human   Ac-  numbers." 
tion",  p.  y?)). 

Another  cause  is  excessive  Brevity ;  it  is  partly  this 
which  makes  Tacitus  so  hard  to  understand. 

Another  great  error  is  the  wrong  Order  of  the 
Words ;  instances  are  given  on  p.  325.  The  Arrange- 
ment of  Words  in  Sentences  is  very  little  studied  in 
Schools.  Professor  Meiklejohn  gives  excellent  in- 
stances of  mistakes  of  this  kind.  Two  instances  may 
be  sufficient  here  :  I  found  them  in  a  Novel. 

"  He  returned  home  with  the  ring  which  had  caused 
him  such  trouble  in  his  waistcoat  pocket." 

Had  the  order  of  words  been  changed,  or  had  the 
Author  said 

"When  he  returned  home,  he  had  in  his  waistcoat 
pocket  the  ring  which  had  caused  him  such  trouble," 

his  meaning  would  have  been  perfectly  clear. 

The  second  is  "  She  announced  her  engagement  to 
Mr.  Brown." 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  very  often  the  Writer 
or  Speaker  himself  will  be  unable  to  see  that  what  he 
has  written  is  anything  else  but  perfect.  Perhaps  he 
himself  knows  what  he  means,  but  he  cannot  put 
himself  in  the  position  of  anyone  else  who  does  not 
)et  know  this. 


CLEARNESS,  AND  SIMPLICITY  231 

Another  common  cause  of  obscurity  is  that  (fic 
wrong  Word  has  been  chosen.  This  is  too  obvious  to 
need  ilkistration  here. 

As  helps  towards  Clearness,  the  following  suggestions 
may  be  found  of  use. 

First  of  all,  the  raider  or  hearer  has  to  be  considered, 
rather  than  the  Writer  or  Speaker.  The  latter  should 
say  to  himself,  "  I  want  the  average  reader  or  hearer, 
or  one  who  is  below  the  average,  to  see  this  Idea  as 
clearly  as  /  see  it."  Now,  in  order  to  attain  this  Clear- 
ness, the  Writer  or  Speaker  must  himself  see  the  Idea 
with  unusual  plainness  and  definiteness :  he  must  have 
a  very  definite  picture  in  his  mind's  eye.  Strange  as  it 
may  sound,  the  habit  of  drawing  pictures  will  do  much 
towards  making  the  Expression  of  Ideas  imniistakable. 
This  is  not  merely  an  allusion  to  pictures  of  people,  but 
also  to  Diagrams  and  Plans  of  every  kind. 

Iktt  a  still  better  means  is  to  turn  whole  passages  of 
abstract  writers  (like  Herbert  Spencer)  into  simple 
ICnglish,  which  should  as  a  rule  answer  such  questions 
as  "  Who  does  ivJiat?"  Sometimes  uthcr  questions 
must  be  answered,  such  as  "When?  Why.?  How? 
etc'  In  other  words,  as  a  rule,  persons  should  be 
imagined  as  acting  or  speaking  or  thinking,  etc.  ;  this 
is  one  of  the  secrets  of  good  Latin  and  Greek  Prose 
Compositions  :  the)'  are  fond  of  describing  someone  as 
doing  something. 

This  does  not  mean  that  all  Writing  or  Speaking 
should  describe  someone  as  doing  something,  for  this 
need  not  be  the  ultimate  and  actual  form  of  Expression  ; 
but  ///////  )'Ou  have  a  clear  picture  in  )-our  e\-e,  you 
cannot  be  quite  sure  that  the  Expression  or  St}'le  will 
be  clear.     When  once  you  have  imagined  a  picture  of 


232  HOW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

*  someone  doing  something ',  then  your  description  of 
that  idea  is  ahnost  bound  to  be  Clear. 

So  important  is  this  Clearness,  that  I  will  suggest 
to  the  reader  to  try  to  turn  the  following  passage 
into  such  English  as  shall  describe  someone  as  doing 
something. 

It  is  from  Gibbon's  "Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire"  (p.  352  of  Vol.  I.,  Bury's  Edition). 

"The  first  considerable  action  of  his  reij^n  seemed  to  evince 
"his  sincerity  as  well  as  his  moderation.  After  the  example  of 
"Marcus,  he  gave  himself  a  colleague  in  the  person  of  Maximian, 
"on  whom  he  bestowed  at  first  the  title  of  Caesar,  and  afterwards 
"  that  of  Augustus.  But  the  motives  of  his  conduct,  as  well  as 
"the  object  of  his  choice,  were  of  a  very  different  nature  from 
"those  of  his  admired  predecessor.  By  investing  a  luxurious 
"youth  with  the  honours  of  the  purple,  Marcus  had  discharged 
"a  debt  of  private  gratitude,  at  the  expense,  indeed,  of  the  happi- 
"ness  of  the  state.  By  associating  a  friend  and  a  fellow-soldier 
"to  the  labours  of  government,  Diocletian,  in  the  time  of  public 
"danger,  provided  for  the  defence  both  of  the  East  and  of  the 
"West.  Maximian  was  born  a  peasant,  and,  like  Aurelian,  in  the 
"territory  of  Sirmium.  Ignorant  of  letters,  careless  of  laws,  the 
"rusticity  of  his  appearance  and  manners  still  betrayed  in  the 
"  most  elevated  fortune  the  meanness  of  his  extraction.  War  was 
"the  only  art  he  professed.  In  a  long  course  of  service  he  had 
"distinguished  himself  on  every  frontier  of  the  empire;  and, 
"though  his  military  talents  were  formed  to  obey  rather  than  to 
"command,  though,  perhaps,  he  had  never  attained  the  skill  of 
"a  consummate  general,  he  was  capable,  by  his  valour,  constancy, 
"and  experience,  of  executing  the  most  arduous  undertakings. 
"Nor  were  the  vices  of  Maximian  less  useful  to  his  benefactor. 
"Insensible  to  pity,  and  fearless  of  consequences,  he  was  the 
"ready  instrument  of  every  act  of  cruelty  which  the  policy  of  that 
"artful  prince  might  at  once  suggest  and  disclaim." 

It  may  be  as  well  to  take  this  piece  and  to  write 
a  short  abstract  of  it,  first  putting  down  the  Ideas  as 
briefly  as  possible,  and   in    as   businesslike   a   form  as 


CLEARNESS,   AND  SIMPLICITY  233 

possible.     After  this  has  been  done,  the  Paraphrasing 
may  run  somewhat  as  follows  : — 

By  that  which  he  first  did,  when  he  had  become  Emperor,  he 
showed  himself  not  only  able  to  control  himself  but  also  really 
desirous  of  helping  his  country.  P'or,  after  the  example  of  Marcus, 
he  chose  for  himself  as  his  colleague  Maximian  .  .  .  but  he  and 
Marcus  chose  very  diftercnt  men,  for  very  ditfcrent  reasons. 
Marcus,  in  order  that  he  might  pay  back  a  debt  to  a  private 
individual,  chose  a  luxurious  youth  as  a  sharer  in  the  glory 
of  reigning.  Diocletian,  in  order  that  he  might  protect  both  the 
Eastern  and  Western  frontiers  of  the  Empire,  chose  a  fellow- 
soldier  as  a  sharer  in  the  labours  of  governing.  Maximian  was 
of  rustic  birth  and,  like  Aurelian  himself,  born  in  the  Sirmian 
territory.  Ignorant  of  letters,  careless  of  laws,  by  his  rustic 
appearance  and  behaviour  he  showed  of  what  birth  he  was,  even 
when  he  had  reached  the  highest  position  in  the  State.  In  war 
alone  he  excelled :  for  through  many  campaigns  on  all  the  frontiers 
of  the  Empire  he  had  shown  himself  an  excellent  soldier  ;  and 
though  as  a  soldier  he  was  more  suited  for  oljcying  than  for  com- 
manding, and  though  he  never  shone  as  a  very  great  general,  yet 
by  his  valour,  constancy,  and  experience,  he  was  able  to  do  the 
most  ditficult  things. 

Nor  did  he  benefit  Diocletian  by  his  vices  less  than  by  these 
virtues.  Being  without  pity,  and  without  care  for  that  which 
would  result  from  whatever  he  did,  he  readily  carried  out  e\-ery 
cruel  act  which  Diocletian,  a  man  of  great  cunning,  first  of  all  had 
ordered  to  be  done  and  then,  when  it  had  been  done,  repudiated. 

Let  the  reader  compare  his  paraphrase  with  this,  and 
let  him  try  to  find  whether  his  paraphrase  or  the  above 
is  nearer  to  the  real  meaning  of  the  '  Gibbon  '. 

This  piece  is  often  set  for  Latin  Prose,  and  three- 
quarters  of  its  difficulty  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  very 
obscure:  when  once  the  real  meaning  has  been  mastered, 
and  the  personal  form  of  '  someone  doing  something ' 
has  been  found,  then  the  greater  part  of  the  work  is 
over. 


231  now   TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

There  have  been  those  who  have  spent  hours  and 
hours  in  making  sure  that  their  Style  was  Clear:  they 
would  not  let  their  Composition  'pass'  until  they  were 
quite  satisfied  that  it  would  be  thoroughly  understood  by 
the  reader  or  hearer,  and  that  it  ivould  Dican  to  the 
reader  exactly  ivhat  it  meant  to  them  themselves.  One  writer 
used  to  read  out  much  of  his  work  to  his  servant ;  for 
he  rightly  supposed  that,  if  his  servant  understood  what 
he  wrote,  then  people  of  greater  intelligence  and  higher 
education  would  also  be  certain  to  understand  it. 

Another  great  aid  towards  Clearness,  besides  this 
inviting  of  the  candid  opinion  of  as  many  others  as 
possible,  is  to  take  one's  Composition  and  look  at  it 
again  after  an  interval,  and  then  to  criticise  it  (see  p.  335) 
as  if  it  were  the  work  of  one's  deadliest  enemy. 

Yet  another  help  would  be  to  take  good  Writers,  and 
from  them  to  select  the  Clearest  passages,  and  then  to 
Analyse  these  passages  (see  p.  213),  and  thus  to  find  out 
exactly  what  it  is  that  makes  them  clear. 

A  few  other  hints  are  suggested  here. 

If  your  passage  should  still  seem  imperfect,  if  you 
should  have  the  slightest  shadow  of  doubt  about  its 
Clearness,  then  it  may  be  safer  either  to  alter  it,  or 
to  express  the  Idea  in  a  second  zuay,  to  repeat  it,  putting  it 
perhaps,  the  second  time,  in  the  abstract  form  as 
opposed  to  the  first  time  in  the  personal  form  (of 
'  someone  doing  something '),  or  using  some  Comparison 
or  Metaphor  which  might  make  the  meaning  absolutely 
unmistakable,  or  some  Contrast  which  might  bring  out 
just  exactly  the  shade  of  sense  which  you  wish  to 
convey  (see  p.  291)  ;  it  might  be  as  well  to  express 
what  it  is  that  you  do  not  mean.  Perhaps  after  all  this 
may  be  one  of  the  best  Exercises. 


CLEARNESS,   AND  SIMPLICITY  235 

As  atiolhcr  help  (which,  however,  is  a  dangerous 
help),  I  should  suggest  Exaggeration ;  it  is  this  which 
makes  Proverbs  so  Clear ;  three-quarters  or  nine-tenths 
of  the  Proverbs  which  we  hear  are  Clear  because  (p.  152) 
they  are  gross  Exaggerations ;  and  those  who  are  wont 
to  address  the  uneducated,  very  frequently  sacrifice  truth 
and  accuracy  for  the  sake  of  Clearness  :  they  fear  that, 
unless  they  exaggerate,  they  will  not  be  understood. 

]'ut,  when  \-our  general  statement  is  not  quite  Clear, 
a  safer  method  is  to  think  of  a  single  Instance  of  the 
general  principle :  that  is  to  say,  to  start  with  the 
Instance,  and  from  that  to  pass  on  to  the  general 
statement ;  this  will  be  a  wonderful  help. 

To  what  I  have  said  above,  certain  Objections  may  be 
made.  It  may  be  said  that  the  abstract  expression 
is  often  necessary,  and  also  has  the  advantage  of  short- 
ness, whereas  the  personal  expression  (of  '  someone 
doing  something')  is  apt  to  fix  the  attention  on  personal 
details  which  are  unimportant.  In  answer  to  this,  I 
should  say  that  the  Concrete  and  personal  must  come 
first  in  the  mind  ;  afterwards,  if  it  be  thought  advisable, 
the  abstract  and  general  Expression  may  be  preferred, 
or  may  be  given  as  ivcll  as  the  personal  expression  ; 
but,  until  the  personal  form  has  been  found  out,  few 
Writers  or  Speakers  can  be  certain  that  their  meaning 
will  be  clear  to  the  ordinary  reader  or  hearer. 

Secondly,  it  may  be  said  that  the  Concrete  and 
personal  expression  is  often  bald ;  but  no  reader  of  the 
Kq,\v  Testament  could  assert  that  this  is  necessarily 
the  case,  although,  almost  throughout,  the  language  is 
personal,  and  describes  '  someone  as  doing  something '. 
I\Iuch  will  depend  on  the  Order  of  words,  on  the 
Number  uf  words,  and  on   the    Rh}-thm.     Much   more 


236  HOW   TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

will  depend  on  this  than  on  the  actual  '  Concrete- 
ness';  and  anyhow  baldness  is  generally  better  than 
Obscurity. 

As  to  the  advantages  of  Clearness  I  need  say  very 
little. 

To  be  certain  that  you  are  not  misleading  your 
readers  or  hearers  is  in  itself  a  very  important  con- 
sideration. It  is  true  that  you  may  be  expressing  an 
Idea  in  a  way  which  will  not  please  the  most  educated 
Public,  but  at  any  rate  you  are  on  the  safe  side,  because 
you  are  appealing  to  a  much  larger  Public,  and,  provided 
that  you  practise  Clearness  as  a  special  Exercise,  there 
is  no  reason  why  your  Composition  should  not  appeal 
to  the  educated  quite  as  much  as  to  the  uneducated. 
At  first,  of  course,  it  will  not  do  so :  the  striving  after 
Clearness  will  have  its  drawback. 

Those  advisers  who  say  to  the  beginner,  "If  you  wish 
to  be  Clear,  be  perfectly  natiirar\  are  absolutely  wrong  : 
for  imagine  anyone  having  given  that  advice  even  to  the 
learned  genius  Herbert  Spencer  (p.  228).  He  would  pro- 
bably say,  "Throughout  my  works  I  have  been  perfectly 
natural".  I  imagine  that  he  wrote  down  just  what  it  was 
natural  for  him  to  write  down  :  there  seems  to  be  no 
conscious  effort  after  Clearness !  But,  in  his  case,  the 
result  was  something  very  far  from  Clearness :  it  was 
often  a  baffling  obscurity.  The  fallacy  that  what  is 
'  natural '  to  everyone  must  therefore  also  be  best  for 
everyone  should  have  been  exploded  by  the  history 
of  past  ages. 

Another  advantage  of  Clearness  is  that  it  is  un- 
doubtedly a  very  great  help,  not  only  in  persuading 
others,  but  also  in  impressing  things  on  one's  own 
mind.      It  is  a  commonplace  that  a  person  remembers 


Cr.FARXFSS,   A.VD  SnirUCITY  237 

things  better  wiien  he  has  understood  them,  and  tiiat 
lie  can  hardly  understand  them  properly  unless  they 
have  been  clearly  expressed.  Therefore  Clearness  will 
help  the  vicuiory. 

Lastly,  it  will  encourage  what  every  one  needs, 
namely  self-criticism.  People  need  to  criticise  their 
own  work  as  well  as  the  work  of  others,  and  every 
attempt  to  make  one's  Writings  or  Speeches  clear  will 
be  an  Exercise  in  self-criticism  and  self- correction. 
The  moral  effect  will  therefore  be  very  considerable. 


CHAPTER    XLII.     BREVITY   AND   ECONOMY. 


Economy  in  Essay-Writing  and  Speaking  is  well 
worthy  of  consideration :  not  onl}'  must  we  try  to 
economise  space,  but  we  must  also  try  to  economise 
time,  and  energy. 

We  must  economise  space,  not  by  Writing  as  much 
as  possible  on  a  single  page,  for  this  is  utterly  False 
Economy,  but  by  cutting  off  as  much  as  possible, 
whether  we  have  to  cut  off  unnecessary  or  inappro- 
priate Ideas,  or  unnecessary  Sentences  or  Words. 

Time  is  not  truly  saved  by  one  who  writes  an  Essay 
or  makes  a  Speech  immediately  he  knows  what  the 
subject  is,  for  that  again  is  False  Economy  of  time  ; 
he  will  save  time  more  truly  by  practising  each  part 
of  Essay-Writing  or  Speaking  correctly  by  itself,  so 
that  the  saving  may  be  not  in  the  immediate  and  tran- 
sitory present  but  in  the  longer  future. 

Energy  again  is  not  truly  saved  when  the  work  is 
done  slackly  or  in  a  slipshod  way  or  in  an  unscientific 
way:  for  that  again  is  False  Economy.  Strange  as 
it  may  seem,  we  can  best  save  energy  in  the  end  by 
using  the  greatest  amount  of  it  in  due  season  ;  only 
we  must  concentrate  it  upon  the  right  things,  and  we 
must  do  these  things  in  the  right  way. 

In  fact,  we  may  use  up  a  great  deal  of  space  and 
a  great  deal  of  paper,  we  may  use  up  a  great  deal 
of    time,    and    we     may    use     up    a    great    deal    of 

23« 


BREVITY  AND  ECONOMY  239 

energy,  in  preparing  an  Essay  or  Speech  according 
to  my  method,  and  in  practising  each  part  of  my 
method  by  itself.  And  yet  in  the  end  there  may 
be  a  wonderful  Econom)'.  The  Essay  which  we  shall 
write  or  the  Speech  that  we  shall  make,  in  a  year's 
time  after  such  practice,  will  be  far  better  in  every 
way,  and,  besides  this,  it  will  be  done  with  less  expen- 
diture of  paper,  of  time,  and  of  Energy ;  so  that  we 
are  as  it  were  spending  a  {q.\\  pounds  to-day  that  we 
may  save  many  hundreds  of  pounds  a  few  j'ears  later* 
In  the  struggle  between  Rome  and  Carthage,  Carthage 
refused  to  invest  a  comparatively  small  sum  of  money 
in  ships  of  war :  the  result  was  that  a  few  years 
later  she  was  defeated  and  had  to  pay  thousands  of 
talents.  Ilistor}-  presents  many  such  instances  of 
Praise  Economy. 

The  Law  of  Economy  applies  to  the  whole  of  the 
Essay,  and  to  its  different  parts,  the  Paragraphs,  the 
Sentences,  the  Clauses,  and  the  Words.  But  one  point 
has  to  be  emphasised  and  never  to  be  forgotten.  For 
the  sake  of  Brevity  we  ifiust  never  sacrifice  Clearness, 
Interest,  Proportion  of  Emphasis,  or  Variety.  These 
are  four  Laws  that  may  contend  against  the  Law  of 
Brevity. 

The  Law  of  Proportion  we  have  already  noticed  : 
according  to  it,  the  more  important  the  Idea  is,  the 
longer  the  Paragraph  should  be,  that  is  to  say  as  a 
rough-and-ready  rule.  If  we  have  an  Idea  which  is 
important,  and  express  it  very  briefly  instead  of  in  a 
longer  Paragraph,  then  we  may  be  securing  Brevity 
but  sacrificing  the  proper  Emphasis :  the  important 
Idea  will  not  have  its  proper  prominence  and  bulk. 
But,   on    the    other    hand,    occasionally    a    very   short 


:-4C.  HOW   TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

Paragraph  may  be  a  sign  of  Emphasis  (see  p.  312): 
this,  however,  is  the  exception. 

It  is  a  safe  general  rule  that  tlie  Essay  or  Speech 
should  be  short,  that  most  of  its  Paragraphs  should 
be  short,  that  most  of  its  Sentences  should  be  short ; 
and  even  the  Words  should  as  a  rule  be  short.  Except 
in  the  case  of  the  last  three,  where,  e.g.,  Variety  and 
Emphasis  are  to  be  aimed  at,  it  is  especially  important 
to  notice  this  need  for  Brevity  to-day :  for  the  tendency 
is  for  everything  to  grow  shorter  and  shorter,  at  any 
rate  in  our  country  and  in  America.  It  cannot  be 
regarded  as  a  healthy  sign  that  the  great  mass  of 
people  object  to  long  Books,  long  Articles,  long 
Chapters,  long  Speeches,  long  Paragraphs,  long  Sen- 
tences, and  long  Words.  Nev^ertheless  it  is  a  sign 
of  the  times,  at  least  in  our  country,  and  as  such  it 
must  be  taken  into  account ;  for,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  Law  of  Appropriateness  tells  us  to  make  our 
Essay,  etc.,  Appropriate  not  only  to  our  Aim  but  also 
to  our  readers  or  hearers. 

As  a  help  towards  Brevity  and  Economy,  you  might, 
after  you  have  finished  the  Essay,  etc.,  analyse  it  into 
Headings,  re-arrange  these  Headings,  and  re-zvrite  the 
Essay,  etc.,  again  ;  count  the  number  of  words  in  the 
old  Essay  and  in  the  new.  Of  course  this  should  be 
after  an  interval,  and  it  is  a  process  that  can  be  applied 
with  equal  effect,  or  perhaps  v/ith  even  better  effect  and 
certainly  with  more  pleasure,  to  the  work  of  someone 
else  :  take  some  Writer  who  is  particularly  verbose,  and 
treat  some  of  his  Writings  thus. 

While  recently  editing  a  German  work  (especially  for 
the  athletic  public)  I  was  surprised  at  the  number  of 
words  to  which  the  ponderous  and  inflated  Sentences 


BREVITY  AND  ECONOMY  241 

of  the  original  had  to  be  reduced  before  they  could  be 
clear :  the  German  work  was  a  vast  mass  of  Abstract 
and  impersonal  statements.  After  turning  the  Abstract 
into  the  Concrete  and  Personal  (see  p.  233),  I  found  that 
the  language  became  not  only  clearer  but  also  far 
shorter. 

But  of  all  the  helps  few  can  be  compared  with  tJie 
careful  preparation  of  the  Headings  and  Sub-Headings 
themselves.  You  can  prove  this  in  the  following  way. 
Do  any  Essay  on  any  subject  just  exactly  as  most 
people  do  it,  that  is  to  say,  straight  away  :  begin 
Writing  the  moment  you  get  the  subject,  and  the 
moment  you  have  finished  Writing  consider  the  Essay 
as  done.  Then  take  this  same  Essay  and  work  it  out 
by  Headings  and  Sub-Headings,  using  the  General 
Lists  as  far  as  possible ;  Collect,  Select,  Underline,  and 
Arrange  these  Headings  and  Sub-Headings,  clearly 
understanding  each  of  them  (for  instance,  by  forming 
pictures  in  the  mind,  see  p.  231);  then  Express  them  in 
simple  language. 

Now  compare  your  former  Essay  with  )'our  present 
Essay.  It  is  quite  possible  that  j'ou  Vv'ill  find  )-our 
present  PIssay  is  no  longer  than  the  first,  and  yet 
contains  twice  or  three  times  as  man}'  Ideas.  It  will 
(probably  be  twice  as  well  Arranged,  and  much  better 
Expressed. 

Above  all,  do  not  think  that  the  number  of  words  is 
of  any  great  importance.  I  remember  one  pupil  telling 
me  that  he  was  afraid  that  he  would  fail  in  his  Essax'- 
Paper  in  an  Exam.,  because  he  did  not  feel  that  he 
could  write  more  than  fifteen  pages  on  any  subject. 
I  told  him  that  if  he  did  a  good  Essay  of  five  pages  it 
would    be   much   better   than   a    bad   Essay   of   twenty 


242  HOW   TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

pages,  and  would  certainly  please  the  Examiner  far 
more ;  but  he  did  not  seem  to  believe  me.  After  the 
Examination  he  told  me  that  he  had  only  done 
thirteen  pages :  there  were  probably  at  least  eight 
pages  too  many. 

Yet  there  is  a  certain  importance  attaching  to  the 
number  of  words,  especially  in  Articles  for  Reviews 
and  Magazines.  It  has  often  seemed  to  me  a  very 
iniquitous  thing  that  the  Editor  of  a  Magazine  or 
Review  should  fix  a  definite  number  of  words  for  an 
Article  (for  instance,  three  thousand)  quite  apart  from 
what  the  subject  is  and  how  important  or  unimportant 
it  is.  But  still  it  is  customary,  and  therefore  to  be 
taken  into  consideration. 

Among    other    helps    to    Brevity  and   Economy,  notice   such 
Rhetorical  Devices  as 

'  honest  rags ' ; 

'  a  cheap  market '.     And  see  p.  299  foil. 

These  are  often  helps  to  \'igour  and  Emphasis  as  well. 


CHAPTER  XLIII.     APPROPRIATENESS,   OR 

ADAPTATION;    AND    UNITY. 


The  Composition  must  be  Adapted  to  the  readers 
or  hearers,  and  to  the  subject,  and  even  to  the  different 
parts  of  the  same  subject :  for  instance,  there  will  not 
be  the  same  St}'le  for  graphic  description,  for  quiet 
proof,  and  for  indignant  refutation.  Professor  Barrett 
Wendell's  remarks  on  the  subject  arc  admirable. 

Adaptation  in  its  widest  sense  would  mean  that  one 
must  Select  one's  Ideas  according  to  the  readers  or 
hearers,  and  according  to  one's  Aims.  Thus,  if  one 
is  Writing  or  Speaking  to  a  popular  audience,  then 
there  would  be  very  few  Ideas. 

In  the  same  way,  the  Arrangement  of  Ideas  must  be 
carefully  Adapted  to  the  readers  or  hearers,  to  the 
Aim,  and  to  the  Subject.  In  a  popular  subject,  the 
Arrangement  might  as  a  rule  be  that  which  is  given  on 
pp.  178,  216,  which  might  be  absolutely  out  of  place  if 
one  were  addressing  a  number  of  Specialists. 

In  this  Chapter,  however,  I  only  wish  to  speak  of  the 
Adapting  of  the  Expression  and  the  Style,  quite  apart 
from  the  Adapting  of  the  Ideas. 

A  friend  of  mine  once  pointed  out  a  truth  very  clearl\-, 
in  a  railway  carriage.  Pointing  to  the  dust  on  the 
window-ledge  and  floor,  he  said  "Dirt  is  ver}'  bad  in 
here,  but  out  there  in  the  farms  it  is  just  what  is 
wanted".      So.   -'ilthough   wc   might    condemn    dirt   for 

243 


341  IIOU^  TO   EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

general  occasions,  still  we  must  realise  there  are 
occasions  when  it  is  in  place.  There  are  occasions 
when  an  Idea  or  a  Style,  which  is  excluded  from  most 
Compositions,  e.g.  because  it  is  too  learned  or  too 
'special',  must  be  adopted:  it  is  appropriate  just  here, 
under  just  these  conditions. 

It  is  a  fallacy,  then,  to  suppose  that  the  ordinary 
'  Laws  '  in  Composition  are  Universal  Laws. 

One  might  think  at  first  that  it  was  a  Universal  Law 
that  all  Writing  or  Speaking  should  be  so  clem'  as  to 
be  transparent.  And  yet,  as  we  have  seen,  no  reader 
of  Carlyle  can  doubt  that  a  great  deal  of  his  Force 
would  be  gone  if  one  made  his  Writings  transparent. 
If  one  took  some  of  Carlyle's  most  typical  works  and 
paraphrased  them  in  simple  English,  the  effect  would 
not  be  a  quarter  as  good  as  it  is. 

Once  again,  one  might  think  that  Economy  was  a 
Universal  Law :  that  it  was  right  always  to  cut  out 
every  word  that  could  be  cut  out.  Treatises  on  Essay- 
Writing  or 'Speaking  usually  emphasise  this  j^oint ; 
and  as  a  general  rule  the  advice  is  good.  But  there  are 
occasions  when  Repetition  is  needed,  and  when  the 
number  of  extra  v/ords  really  adds  to  the  effect,  which 
effect  could  not  well  be  produced  without  them. 

And  once  again,  Professor  Freeman  was  never  tired 
of  telling  people  to  use  Anglo-Saxon  zvords.  He  drags 
in  this  piece  of  advice  into  all  his  Books,  in  season  and 
out  of  season.  And  other  Authorities  also  advise 
people  to  use  short  Sentences.  And  yet  undoubtedly 
there  are  subjects  or  parts  of  subjects  where  Anglo- 
Saxon  words  are  not  so  good  as  the  (often  longer) 
Latin  words  (see  p.  305),  and  where  short  Sentences 
(see  p.  319)  are  not  so  g«"jod  as  long  Periods. 


ArPROPRlATENESS  OR  ADAPTATION        245 

1  will  give  two  more  instances  to  show  how  Laws, 
which  seem  to  be  Universal,  are  as  a  matter  of  fact 
subject  to  the  higher  Law,  the  Law  of  Appropriateness 
or  Adaptation. 

A  smooth  RhylluiL  is  recommended,  and  for  ordinary 
purposes  it  is  best.  But  for  the  description  of  a  piece 
of  rugged  scenery  it  might  be  quite  out  of  place. 

Many  teachers  say  that  slang  and  vulgar  expressions 
;are  always  out  of  place  in  any  and  every  sort  of 
Composition.  But  readers  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  viust 
feel  that  he  has  violated  the  Law  of  Appropriateness 
when  he  makes  the  common  gardener  or  workman 
or  child  speak  in  beautiful  and  cultivated  and  high- 
flown  language,  showing  no  distinction  between  this 
Style  and  the  Style  of  the  most  learned  Professors. 
It  is  a  great  blot  on  his  work. 

The  Law  of  Appropriateness  and  Adaptation  will 
therefore  be  one  of  the  most  widely  applicable  Laws 
in  all  Composition.  And  let  me  repeat  that  it  means 
to  adapt  oneself,  one's  Ideas,  and  one's  Style,  to  the 
subject,  or  part  of  a  subject,  and  to  the  reader  or 
hearer,  according  to  w  hat  one's  Aims  may  be. 

Let  us  therefore  consider  the  above  remarks  more 
carefully. 

The  Law  of  Adaptation  will  override  tJic  Laiu  of 
Clearness,  when  the  expression  which  is  not  Clear  will 
nevertheless  be  more  Forcible  and  striking,  and  will 
make  people  think  because  it  attracts  their  attention 
and  interests  them  and  (see  p.  258)  makes  them  rebel  : 
a  perfectly  Clear  statement  will  not  always  do  this. 

The  Law  of  Adaptation  will,  as  we  have  seen,  over- 
ride the  Laiv  of  Brevity  and  Econoiiij,  when  we  wish 
to  repeat    an    Idea,    or    to    introduce    Comparisons    or 


246  //Oir   TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

Contrasts,  and  perhaps  to  produce  Balance  and  Rhythm. 
Sometimes,  in  fact,  the  Law  of  Clearness  or  the  Law  of 
Emphasis  may  be  far  more  important  than  the  Law  of 
Brevity  or  Economy.  As  in  feeding,  so  in  Writing 
and  Speaking,  it  is  a  mistake  to  condense  always. 
Occasionally  there  must  be  something  which  does  not 
actually  nourish,  but  gives  the  Eood  what  we  may  call 
material,  bulk,  or  size. 

The  rule  that  we  should  prefer  Anglo-Saxon  zvords  is 
an  excellent  one ;  only,  in  Philosophical  and  Scientific 
Writings  and  Speeches  addressed  to  none  but  Specialists, 
the  Latin  words  may  be  not  merely  a  saving  of  time 
and  trouble,  but  they  may  also  express  the  meaning 
far  more  clearly  and  accurately. 

The  rule  of  Short  Sentences  may  be  broken  by  the 
Law  of  Variety,  the  Law  of  Balance,  and  the  particular 
kind  of  Style  which  is  fitted  for  the  purpose.  If  the 
purpose  be  to  reason  quite  calmly,  or  give  a  quiet 
narrative  or  description,  then  a  long  Sentence  or  a 
Period  may  be  found  more  Appropriate. 

The  important  Laws,  then,  are  only  general  Laws  for 
ordinary  purposes,  for  we  have  seen  that  there  are 
occasions  when  slang,  or  harsh  Metres,  are  strictly 
Appropriate,  and  therefore  indispensable. 

When  we  ask  what  is  Appropriate,  we  find  it  easier 
(as  is  so  often  the  case)  to  explain  by  means  of  a 
Contrast  (see  p.  291).  In  an  American  Novel  we  find  the 
words  "  Hast  discovered  yon  traitor?"  "Yes",  said  he. 
"Then",  quoth  his  comrade,  "hurry  up".  Here  the 
Inappropriateness  of  the  "hurry  up",  or,  rather,  the 
Inappropriateness  of  any  word  like  "hast"  or  "yon", 
is  very  obvious.  I  should  say  that  the  Inappropriate- 
ness was  not  in  the  "hurry  up"  but  in  the  "hast"  and 


APPROJ'R/ATEAESS   OR  ADAPTATION         247 

the  "yoii",  which  are  out  <jf  [)lace  in  a  Detective-story 
of  modern  times.  The  opposite  to  Appropriateness 
will  therefore  sometimes  be  Bathos.     See  p.  260. 

N.B. — This  Ending  ("See  p.  260")  is  probably  itself 
inappropriate,  as  an  Ending  to  a  Paragraph  ! 

RItctorical  Devices,  such  as  Questions,  are  very  well 
w  hen  they  are  in  their  proper  place,  but  they  certainly 
have  their  proper  place  and  are  to  be  avoided  elsewhere. 
Some  American  Novelists,  again,  are  very  fond  of  intro- 
ducing them  on  every  possible  occasion,  using  them  so 
often  (even  in  simple  quiet  descriptions)  that,  w^hen  they 
come  to  a  place  where  they  need  something  '  Rhe- 
torical ',  they  find  they  have  exhausted  all  their  devices 
already.  Like  the  man  who  got  into  the  habit  of 
swearing  without  provocation,  when  the  provocation 
actually  comes  the)-  have  no  further  weapon  to  emplo)-. 

The  general  [principle  then  will  be,  not  to  use  these 
various  devices  unless  they  are  really  wanted,  really 
Appropriate.  It  will  take  a  long  while  to  learn  where 
they  are,  or  are  not,  really  Appropriate. 

The  word  '  Adaptation  '  will  apply  to  the  length  or 
shortness  of  Paragraphs.  These  should  vary  in  size 
partly  according  to  the  importance  of  the  subject, 
partly  according  to  the  Law  of  Balance,  and  partly 
according  to  the  Law  of  Variety ;  but,  on  the  whole, 
the  shorter  are  clearer  and  pleasanter  than  the  longer 
Paragraphs.  And  the  {probability  is  that  Paragraphs 
will  become  shorter  and  shorter:  there  has  certainly 
been  a  tendency  in  this  direction  for  some  time  past. 
A  very  good  piece  of  advice,  however,  is  to  sunu)iarise 
a  long  Paragraph  by  a  short  Sentence  at  the  end  of  it  ; 
by  this  means  the  advantages  of  a  long  Paragra[)h 
(which  are  considerable)  need   not  be  sacrificed.     For 


248  HOW   TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

it  is  a  very  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  short  Para- 
graphs should  be  used  throughout  Writing  or  Speaking  : 
a  long  Paragraph  is  one  of  the  best  means  of  calling 
attention  to  the  importance  of  an  Idea.  Though,  once 
again,  Writing  and  Speaking,  and  different  classes  of 
Writing  and  Speaking,  have  different  Laws. 

The  length  of  Sentences  also  must  vary,  but  here 
also  the  shorter  are  safer  than  the  longer  Sentences, 
especially  when  they  have  to  be  Spoken  and  then 
heard,  rather  than  Written  and  then  read.  The  shorter 
Sentences  are  of  course  better  for  a  quick  narrative, 
e.g.  telling  of  rapid  action,  and  fur  passionate  reasoning, 
but  the  longer  Sentences  are  almost  demanded  by 
certain  slower  and  quieter  descriptions,  and  by  calm 
arguments  :  in  fact,  if  there  were  not  long  Sentences, 
the  short  Sentences  would  cease  to  have  their  full 
effect;  that  is  to  say,  you  could  no  longer  denote  ex- 
citing actions  by  means  of  short  Sentences  if  you  were 
constantly  using  the  same  short  Sentences  for  a  quiet 
description  of  scenery. 

As  to  the  Vocabulary,  that  also  should  be  carefully 
Adapted.  There  has  been  a  tendency,  in  the  Novels 
and  Stories  of  late  years,  to  Adapt  the  Vocabulary 
to  the  character,  that  is  to  say,  not  to  make  all  the 
characters  speak  in  exactly  the  same  Style,  generally 
the  best  Style  that  the  Author  can  write.  Poetic 
Vocabularies  may  be  right  for  certain  kinds  of  descrip- 
tion, and  for  pathetic  passages.  A  simple  Vocabular)', 
especially  of  Anglo-Saxon  words,  would  be  best  for 
ordinary  Narratives,  and  for  every  branch  of  literature 
if  the  readers  or  hearers  (or  any  of  them)  arc  un- 
educated. If  Technical  language  must  be  used,  it 
should    nearly    alwa}^s    be    preceded    by    untechnical 


APPROPRIATENESS   OR   ADAPTATION        249 

language,  that  is  to  say,  the  explanation  and  meaning 
should  come  first,  and  the  Technical  word  may  then 
come  afterwards.  lUit,  for  a  learned  audience.  Tech- 
nical language  and  ponderous  Words  are  often  the 
very  best.  It  is  quite  possible  that  in  a  single  piece 
of  Composition  several  different  kinds  o{  Vocabularies 
will  have  to  be  used ;  and  indeed,  for  the  sake  of 
Repetition,  lunphasis,  and  Clearness,  simple  language 
and  Technical  language  arc  often  to  be  combined  and. 
used  side  by  side. 

On  page  284  we  note  that  Comparisons  must  be  ver/ 
carefully  Adapted  to  the  readers  or  hearers  and  their 
surroundings :  the  choice  of  Comparisons  will  also 
depend  a  good  deal  on  how  hard  the  subject  is  for 
the  readers  or  hearers  to  understand,  and  how  im- 
portant the  point  is.  A  Comparison  or  IMetaphor  may 
be  excellent  in  itself,  but,  when  introduced  where  the 
Idea  would  be  quite  clear  without  it,  and  where  the 
Idea  is  not  important,  will  be  a  violation  of  the  Law 
of  Appropriateness.  There  are  occasions,  however  (e.g. 
see  p.  215),  where  two  Comparisons  (or  even  three)  will 
be  Appropriate. 

Almost  exactl}-  the  same  may  be  noted  of  Contrasts. 

With  regard  to  RJiytliin  we  have  already  said  a  good 
deal.  We  have  seen  how  a  dignified  piece  of  Composi- 
tion will  have  long  Sentences  and  long  Words,  whereas 
a  rapid  and  passionate  piece  will  have  shorter  Sentences 
and  shorter  Words.  In  a  quiet  and  ordinar)-  piece,  the 
Sentences  and  Words  may  be  of  average  length. 

In  conclusion,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  Law  of  Adapta- 
tion or  Appropriateness  must  run  through  the  whole 
world  of  Composition,  and  that  it  is  a  Law  that  needs 
very  careful  attention  and  study:    it  forces  the  Writer 


250  now  TO  EX}'RESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

to  think  not  only  of  his  subject,  from  very  many  points 
of  view,  but  also  of  his  aims  and  objects,  and  of  his 
readers  or  hearers  and  their  conditions  of  '  mind, 
body,  and  estate'.  It  is  so  general  a  Law  that  a  great 
deal  which  one  says  about  it  is  bound  to  be  vague.  If 
one  says  to  a  cricketer,  '  Adapt  your  batting  to  the 
bowler,  to  the  ground,  to  the  state  of  the  game,  etc.',  ox 
'  Adapt  your  bowling  to  the  batsman,  etc.,'  the  advice  is 
none  the  less  sound  because  it  is  general. 

In  a  small  Book  like  this,  I  cannot  possibly  exhaust 
all  the  ways  in  which  the  Law  must  be  applied.  In 
the  above  pages  I  have  only  pointed  out  one  or  two 
of  the  applications. 

For  a  good  discussion  of  Utiity,  I  may  refer  the 
reader  to  Barrett  Wendell's  "  English  Composition ". 
Besides  what  I  have  just  said  about  Adaptation,  one 
or  two  remarks  may  be  added  about  Unity. 

A  compact  Period  may  give  a  good  impression  of 
Unity,  by  gathering  together,  between  its  beginning 
and  its  end,  a  number  of  subordinate  sentences  or 
thoughts :  the  mere  sight  and  sound  of  the  Period 
can  help  to  give  compactness  and  to  \\'eld  the  whole 
together. 

If,  however,  a  number  of  Independent  Sentences  or 
Clauses  are  used,  then  how  is  Unity  to  be  kept  ?  How 
can  we  weld?  And  the  same  problem  occurs  if  we 
have  had  to  digress.  A  single  Sentence  at  the  end  of 
the  Paragraph,  gathering  up  the  thoughts  in  a  Ri'suiiite 
(p.  247)^this  may  be  one  of  the  best  solutions. 


CHAPTER    XLIV.     VARIETY. 


If  the  passac^c  from  the  New  Testament,  on  p.  212, 
be  very  carefully  studied,  it  will  be  found  an  admirable 
instance  of  Variety.  We  noticed  in  it  one  single  Idea 
expressed  in  many  ways  and  by  many  means :  we 
noticed  in  it  Repetition  for  the  sake  of  Clearness  and 
Emphasis ;  wc  noticed  Comparisons,  Contrasts,  and 
Details;  we  might  have  noticed  a  certain  approach  to 
Humour  ;  wc  noticed  also  Balance  and  Rhythm.  It  has 
a  changing  Rhythm,  which  may  not  be  so  remarkable  in 
the  Greek  as  in  the  English.  We  noticed  also  the  Ques- 
tion, and  many  other  features  as  well ;  and  all  these  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  there  was  only  one  Idea,  namely, 
that  the  really  good  are  those  who  are  good  in  their 
inmost  selves  and  at  their  foundations. 

There  is  Variety  also  in  the  length  of  the  Words  and 
Sentences,  and,  if  wc  study  the  Sermon  on  the  IMount 
as  a  whole,  we  shall  find  Variety  in  the  length  of  the 
Paragraphs. 

In  this  instance  we  found  the  great  Variety  used  for 
one  purpose  in  particular,  namel)',  for  Emphasis  ;  but 
it  will  be  seen  that  the  Variety  serves  two  other  purposes 
as  well  :  it  makes  the  Idea  Clear  to  the  audience,  and 
also  Interesting  and  Suggestive. 

The  Law  of  Variety  is,  like  most  Laws,  subject  to 
the   Law  of   Appropriateness  or  ^Adaptation  :    to  take 

251 


iJ52  IIOIV  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

any  miiviportant  Idea  and  to  repeat  it  in  all  the  above 
wa}-s,  by  mere  Repetition,  by  changing  the  Construc- 
tion, by  different  Coinparisohs  and  Contrasts,  and  by 
Questions,  would  be  an  instance  of  Variety  which 
would  be  wrong,  because  it  would  not  be  Appropriate. 
Somewhat  similarly  we  see  that  certain  pictures  make 
a  great  mistake  in  giving  the  details  of  a  thing  which 
should  by  rights  be  represented  very  vaguely,  so  as 
not  to  attract  the  attention  at  all.  And  this  too  holds 
good  even  though  the  Variety  in  this  case  may  be 
quite  Interesting  to  the  audience :  that  is  to  say,  it 
is  not  enough  excuse  for  altering  and  changing  to  say 
that  you  are  interesting  your  audience  ;  it  is  not  only 
the  audience  that  is  to  be  considered  but  also  the 
relative  imiportance  of  the  Ideas  themselves. 

Especially  deserving  of  study  is  Grammatical  Vai'iely. 
It  is  a  good  Exercise  to  express  certain  Ideas  in  as 
many  ways  as  possible.  To  every  reader  of  Grammar, 
such  terms  as  Sentence,  Voice,  Mood,  Tense,  Person, 
and  Number,  are  familiar;  but  they  probably  have  for 
him  very  little  meaning  or  use.  We  know  more  or  less 
w^hat  these  terms  mean,  but  we  cannot  employ  our  know- 
ledge. Now  if  the  matter  be  carefully  studied,  and  if 
we  express  a  thing  in  many  different  ways,  then  we 
shall  find  that  all  these  words  are  valuable. 

Let  us  take  an  instance  first.  A  Sentence  may  be 
a  Statement  or  a  Denial,  or  a  Question  (and  there  are 
many  kinds  of  Questions),  or  an  Exhortation  or  Wish, 
or,  lastly,  an  Exclamation.  All  these  are  Varieties  of 
the  Sentence,  and  there  are  certain  Ideas  which  can  be 
expressed  in  at  least  five  different  ways,  namely,  as  a 
Statement  or  a  Denial,  a  Question,  an  Exhortation,  and 
an  Exclamation.     I  suggest  one  example  here. 


VARfRTY  253 

1.  You  ought  to  go  ;  it  is  }'our  duty  to  go  ; 

2.  You  ought  not  to  stop  ; 

3.  Why  do  you  stop?  Why  do  }-ou  not  go?  Why 
have  )'ou  not  gone  ?     Ought  you  not  to  go  ? 

4.  Go  ;    I  wish  \'ou  would  go  ;    I   [)ra}-  that  j'ou  may 

5.  How  fooh'sh  (etc.)  of  )-ou  to  stop ! 

This  has  ah'cady  inchidcd  certain  changes  of  Mood 
and  Tense,  but  still  more  Variety  can  be  introduced  : 
the  Moods  can  be  varied,  and  yet  the  Idea  can  remain 
practically  the  same. 

And  so  also  of  the  Tenses :  a  general  truth  can  be 
expressed  in  three  different  wa}'s.  'Ice  is  slippery', 
would  be  a  general  statement.  '  Ice  always  has  been 
slippery',  would  be  a  'Perfect'.  'Ice  (always)  will  be 
slippery  ',  is  Future.  It  is  noticeable  that  the  strictl}'  Pre- 
sent Tense,  i.e.  where  )-ou  put  in  the  word  '  now ',  or  say 
'  Ice  is  being  slippery',  does  not  give  this  general  sense. 

Varieties  of  Voice  are  worth  practising  for  certain 
purposes  :  it  does  not  make  much  difference  whether 
we  sa)'  '  It  has  been  done  b)-  him  ',  or  '  He  has  done  it ' ; 
for  Passives  can  generally  be  turned  into  Actives,  except 
eg.  the  housemaid's  'It  has  been  broken'!  Practice  in 
this  Variety  of  Voice  is  useful,  because  one  often  wishes 
to  avoid  changing  the  Subject  of  the  Sentence  if  one 
can  help  it. 

Changes  in  Person  and  Number  are  not  alwaj's  possible, 
except  in  general  statements,  and,  besides  this,  it  is  a 
pity  to  change  the  Subject  of  the  Sentence  unneces- 
sarily, as  in  'Jack  had  come  home,  but  when  his  father 
had  died  [better — when  he  had  lost  his  father]  he  went 
away  again '. 


254  f^OW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

For  an  example  of  an  unnecessary  change  of  Words 
and  Construction,  I  may  refer  to  the  Instance  on  page  325. 
It  will  be  seen  there  that  the  word  'requisite',  which 
is  used  in  the  first  part,  is  changed  to  'necessary'  in 
the  second  part ;  the  Number,  which  is  Singular  in  the 
word  'the  man',  is  unnecessarily  changed  to  Plural  in 
the  word  '  boys ' ;  all  such  changes  are  to  be  avoided. 
They  were  dear  to  Gibbon,  and  they  helped  to  make 
his  Style  so  exasperating  to  many  of  his  readers. 

A  particular  branch  of  such  unnecessary  Variety  is 
where  an  Author  calls  a  person  first  by  his  proper 
name,  for  instance,  Tiberius,  then  by  some  other  term 
such  as  'the  luxurious  despot',  then  by  another  term 
such  as  'the  foreshadower  of  Nero',  then  by  yet 
another,  such  as  'the  gloomy  and  discontented 
monarch'.  The  general  rule  would  be  not  to  use 
any  such  descriptions  unless  they  add  something  to 
the  sense,  or  help  to  explain  the  particular  scene,  etc. 
After  a  Member  of  Parliament  had  been  mentioned, 
he  was  referred  to  as  'an  indulgent  parent'.  Now,  if 
he  had  just  passed  over  some  fault  of  his  son,  then 
'indulgent  parent'  would  be  all  right,  but,  if  he  only  (let 
us  say)  had  had  a  cup  of  tea,  then  'indulgent  parent' 
would  be  out  of  place.  It  is  much  better  to  allude  to 
a  person  by  his  name  or  by  Pronouns  (e.g.  '  he '). 
Sidgwick  aptly  calls  this  allusion  to  a  person  by  dif- 
ferent terms  the  Ornate  Alias ;  it  is  a  phrase  worth 
remembering.  Latin  Prose  Composition  is  one  of 
the  best  helps  towards  the  avoiding  of  it. 

Confusion  of  Metaphors,  etc.,  is  another  form  of  bad 
Variety :  the  historic  instances  are,  '  It  was  a  mere  flea- 
bite  in  the  ocean ',  and  '  I  smell  a  rat :  I  see  it  in  the 
air  :  but  I  '11  nip  it  in  the  bud  '. 


CIIAl'TKR    XLV.     INTEREST. 


A  Writer  or  Speaker  often  makes  a  very  g^rcat  mis- 
take in  writing  or  saying  things  which  are  Interesting 
to  himself,  without  first  considering  whether  they  arc 
Interesting  to  the  reader  or  hearer  also,  or  even  to 
the  reader  or  hearer  only.  And,  when  one  advises 
a  Writer  or  Speaker  to  keep  up  the  Interest  during 
his  Writings,  one  means  the  Interest  of  the  reader 
or  hearer,  and  not  merely  his  own. 

Interest  is  especially  necessary  at  the  Beghiiiiiig-  of  a 
Composition,  for  we  know  how  often  people  choose 
Books  and  Stories  simple  by  their  beginning.  The  art 
of  beginning  in  an  Interesting  way  should  therefore  be 
very  carefully  studied  (see  p.  258) ;  and  not  only  should 
the  beginning  of  the  whole  Composition  be  Interesting, 
but  also  the  beginning  of  each  Section  and  Chapter  and 
Paragraph.  It  is  obvious  that  the  Writer  or  Speaker 
cannot  ensure  this  Interest  unless  he  has  sympathy  with 
his  readers  or  hearers,  and  adapts  himself  to  their 
point  of  view. 

There  are  some  things  which  are  of  Interest  to 
almost  ever)'body :  thus,  if  you  can  appeal  to  the 
reader's  Emotions  (e.g.  his  pity,  his  indignation,  or 
his  fear),  or  if  }*ou  can  point  out  the  advantage  of  the 
readers  or  hearers,  or  liow  they  may  help  others  in 
some  way,  or  if  you  can  criticise  a  fault,  or  if  }'ou  can 
give  a  telling  Comparison  (p.  281),  especially  one  which 
appeals  to  the  e\'e,  and  with  which  he  is  familiar,  or  if 

255 


256  HOW  TO   EXPRESS  IDEAS:   STYLE 

you  can  give  him  a  Contrast  (p.  291),  you  will  probably 
succeed  in  getting  his  attention.  And,  to  some,  even  a 
mere  Repetition  may  be  Interesting,  if  it  is  carefully 
managed  ;  but  one  essential  in  securing  Interest  is  to 
secure  Variety,  not  so  much  in  the  subject  (sec  p.  213) 
as  in  the  way  of  treating  it. 

The  reader  will  also  probably  be  Interested  if  he 
is  able  to  apply  what  you  suggest  to  other  subjects  as 
well,  and  if  he  is  able  to  carry  out  original  research  ; 
so  that  it  may  be  often  a  good  thing  not  to  let  the 
Composition  be  merely  the  giving  of  information,  but 
to  let  it  suggest  something  for  the  reader  or  hearer  to 
v/ork  out  for  himself 

A  step  further  is  when  the  Author  (by  Questions  and 
other  means,  see  p.  296)  asks  the  i-eader  or  hearer  for 
information,  as  it  were,  and  seems  to  draw  the  answer 
from  him,  so  that  it  appears  that  the  reader  or  hearer 
is  really  finding  out  everything  for  himself,  and  even 
teaching  the  Author.  In  Teaching,  it  is  of  course 
important  for  the  pupils  to  think  they  are  finding  out 
a  great  deal  for  themselves. 

Among  miscellaneous  helps  towards  exciting  Interest 
we  may  mention  Hnnionr  and  Absurdity,  Novelty  and 
Paradox,  and  the  exciting  of  the  Curiosity,  and  of  the 
Reasoning  Faculty. 

Several  useful  lessons  may  be  learnt  from  Advertise- 
ments:  the  Advertiser  aims  at  arousing  and  keeping 
the  Interest  of  the  reader,  and  a  study  of  Advertise- 
ments will  therefore  be  a  good  study  of  the  means 
of  getting  the  attention  of  large  masses  of  people. 

Or,  again,  various  Articles  in  Reviews  and  Magazines, 
and  even  the  Titles  of  Books  and  Articles,  deserve  a 
very  careful  examination. 


INTEREST  257 

Occasionally  a  little  Flattoy  will  excite  the  attention 
of  the  reader  or  hearer,  and  put  him  on  his  mettle. 
Instead  of  saying  "This  is  so",  the  Author  may  say 
"  A  thoughtful  and  intelligent  reader  cannot  fail  to 
see  that  this  is  so  ",  though  one  is  bound  to  confess  that 
this  method  is  frequently  abused. 

Interest  cannot  be  kept  up  for  an  indefinite  period  of 
time.  By  Variety,  Interest  may  be  sustained  for  a  long 
time.  But,  unless  you  are  very  clever  and  ingenious, 
you  had  better  be  brief.  Monotony  is  a  great  fault, 
but  often  excessive  length  and  mass  and  bulk  is  a 
greater  fault — as  in  the  case  of  food. 


CHAPTER    XLVI.     BEGINNINGS. 


A  GOOD  deal  of  what  I  say  here  appHes  not  only  to  tht: 
very  Beginning  of  any  Composition,  but  to  all  the 
Beginnings  of  Paragraphs,  etc.,  within  the  Composition 
itself 

The  importance  of  the  Beginning  is  well  known  iiL 
the  choice  of  Novels:  the  Beginning  is  only  one  degree  less 
important  than  the  Title,  which  itself  is  the  Beginning 
of  Beginnings.  And  another  Comparison  would  be  the 
Initial,  which  is  the  most  important  part  of  a  name : 
it  can  even  stand  for  the  whole  name. 

Beginnings  should  as  a  rule  be  Interesting :  they 
should  arouse  the  attention  and  keep  it.  Within  the 
Essay  itself,  each  Paragraph  should  begin  in  an  In- 
teresting way,  unless,  that  is  to  say,  it  is  to  be  linked 
to  the  Paragraph  before,  in  which  case  the  principle 
may  not  be  Interest,  but  rather  Connexion. 

A  Paradox  makes  a  very  good  Beginning.  The 
reader  or  hearer  thinks  to  himself,  '  How  can  the  man 
possibly  say  this?  what  docs  he  mean?'  His  curiosity 
and  opposition  are  at  once  stimulated.  One  of  the 
most  excellent  examples  is  the  '  Sermon  on  the  Mount', 
which  began  by  saying  that  the  poor  were  happy  :  only 
of  course  it  was  a  particular  kind  of  poor,  namely,  those 
who  were  poor  in  selfish  thoughts. 

Under  Paradoxes  might  be  classed  untrue  statements, 
which  you  then  go  on  to  prove  untrue;  or  partially  true 

258 


BECrNNlIVGS  259 

statements,  uhlcli  you  then  ^o  on  to  correct.  To  refute 
a  Fa/lacy  is  often  the  best  Beginning,  because  it  is  very 
human  to  Hke  to  hear  someone  else  being  'shown  up'. 
The  Section  of  the  'Sermon'  (on  p.  212)  began  by  ex- 
posing the  Fallacy  of  Ap[:)carances. 

Among  other  Beginnings,  a  Quotation  is  very  often 
found  Interesting  (see  p.  163),  or  an  Anecdote,  or  a 
Coj)iparison,  which  is  afterwards  applied. 

A  Question,  for  instance  one  which  suggests  a  prob- 
lem, will  frequently  arouse  the  Interest  and  attention. 

Some  people  are  fond  of  starting  their  Essays  with 
a  Scheme  of  the  Essay  itself,  showing  the  scope  of  it 
(as  Macaulay  did  in  his  "History"),  the  aim  of  the 
Writer,  the  importance  of  the  questions,  the  difficulties, 
and  so  on. 

Others  again  start  with  a  statement  of  the  Authorities 
and  Evideiices  as  to  the  subject,  and  they  say  (see  p.  140) 
where  these  are  good  and  where  they  arc  bad. 

Practice  in  Beginnings  is  of  great  importance  in  all 
Composition,  but  of  supreme  importance  in  Speaking. 
And  a  very  good  kind  of  Practice  is  to  take  the  Begin- 
nings of  good  Books,  Chapters,  and  Paragraphs,  and  of 
good  Articles,  Essays,  and  Speeches,  and  to  see  exactly 
how  they  manage  (or  fail)  to  arouse  Interest. 

A  very  easy  and  a  very  instructive  study  (cp.  p.  256) 
is  the  study  of  Advertisements.  It  is  the  whole  aim  of 
the  Advertiser  to  start  his  Advertisement  with  some- 
thing which  will  attract  the  reader's  notice,  and  hence, 
although  he  goes  to  an  extreme  to  which  a  serious  Essay 
would  not  dare  to  go,  yet  the  general  principle  is  sound. 
Among  various  ways  of  starting  Advertisements,  one 
may  notice  the  Quotation  (which  often  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  the  thing  Advertised  !).     But  the 


26o  Flow    TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

methods  of  attracting  the  milHons  are  too  numerous  to 
be  mentioned  here :  all  that  one  need  say  is  that  they 
are  very  valuable  in  showing  how  to  appeal  to  a  popular 
audience.  We  might  notice  here  that  the  Endings  of 
these  Advertisements  are  as  a  rule  singularly  uninter- 
esting :  the  Advertisements  are  not  to  be  taken  as  a 
complete  model  for  Composition  !  That  which  starts 
as  if  some  exciting  adventure  is  to  be  described,  and 
ends  up  with  somebody's  "Blood  Mixture"  or  "Pill", 
has  an  interesting  Beginning,  but  an  Ending  which  can 
only  be  called  Bathos  or  Anticlimax. 


CHAPTER    XLVIl.     ENDINGS. 


Ix  many  Essaj's,  and  (to  a  smaller  extent)  in  Speeches, 
the  Ending  may  be  written  or  prepared  right  at  the 
very  outset,  and  may  be  kept  in  view  throughout. 

The  Ending  is  sometimes  even  more  important  than 
the  Beginning,  corresponding  to  the  last  tastes  of  a 
meal,  or  the  last  notes  of  a  tune.  And,  like  the  Begin- 
ning, the  Ending  applies  not  only  to  the  whole  Ending, 
but  to  the  Ending  of  each  Chapter  and  Paragraph. 

The  Ending  should  as  a  rule  be  Impressive,  or  should 
encourage  the  reader  or  hearer  to  thiuk ;  but,  within  the 
Essay  itself,  the  Ending  of  a  Paragraph  very  often  is 
rather  to  form  a  Councxioii  between  that  Paragraj)!!  and 
the  next. 

The  chief  faults  in  landings  arc  abruptuess  and  tauie- 
uess.  The  Greeks  were  very  careful  here  to  a\oid 
abruptness  or  even  excitement :  they  liked  to  end 
quietly.  This  is  perhaps  not  a  modern  characteristic  ; 
but,  as  in  so  many  departments,  perhaps  the  Greeks 
were  nearer  to  being  right  than  we  are. 

Their  finishing  Sentences  often  seem  to  us  to  be 
actually  tame  and  insipid,  and  this  is  a  fault  which  we 
are  very  careful  to  avoid.  But  many  analogies  (e.g.  the 
analogy  of  Physical  Exercise)  would  seem  to  favour  the 
quiet  Ending. 

If  we  are  trying  to  make  Endings  as  Impressive  as 
possible,  we  shall  sometimes   succeed  by  Suiiiuiarisiug 

261 


262  HOW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

the  subject,  sometimes  by  pointing  out  how  important 
the  subject  is,  sometimes  by  suggesting  pjvblcnis  for  the 
reader  or  hearer  to  work  out. 

But  the  particular  Ending  must  depend  a  great  deal 
on  what  the  particular  Aims  may  be.  They  may  be  to 
encourage  or  to  frighten,  to  make  people  careful,  to 
make  them  think  for  themselves,  and  so  on. 

The  best  Practice  will  again  be  a  careful  study  of 
Endings  :  those  of  Speeches  and  of  Articles  are  best 
worth  attention.  Advertisements  (as  was  shown  on 
p.  260)  generally  have  very  feeble  Endings,  and  they 
will  be  studied  from  another  point  of  view,  namely,  as 
specimens  of  that  which  is  to  be  avoided. 

Among  their  other  faults,  besides  tameness,  they 
often  end  in  a  lot  of  short  words.  Had  this  Chapter 
ended  here,  it  would  have  had  the  same  fault.  A  few 
long  words  form  a  better  close,  just  as  Cicero  liked  to 
close  with  such  Rhythms  as  the  wonderfully  effective 
^essc  vidcdlur\ 


CHAPTER    XLVIII.     CONNEXION  AND  COHESION. 


The  principle  of  Connexion  liolds  good  for  the  Sections 
and  Chapters  of  a  Book  or  Speech,  and  for  the 
Paragraphs  of  a  Section  or  Chapter  or  Essay,  and  to 
some  extent  for  the  Sentence  of  a  Paragraph,  and  the 
Words  of  a  Sentence. 

The  Connexion  between  one  Paragraph  and  another 
is  that  which  I  wish  to  deal  with  here  especially.  An 
example  is  given  directly.  I^ach  Idea  should  lead 
naturally  to  the  Idea  which  comes  next ;  though  this 
of  course  is  only  as  a  general  rule.  But  what  are 
the  Connexions  between  various  Ideas? 

I'irst  of  all,  both  Ideas  may  belong  to  the  same  Class, 
the  same  general  Heading.  For  instance,  on  p.  185  we 
should  say  that  tb.c  Family  Organisation,  the  Political 
Organisation,  the  Character,  etc.,  of  the  Romans  would 
come  under  the  General  Heading  of  '  The  Romans 
considered  by  themselves ',  whereas  the  Alliances  and 
Treachery  and  gradual  Conquests,  etc.,  would  come 
under  the  Heading  of 'The  Romans  in  their  dealings  with 
others'.  This  then  will  be  one  principle  of  Connexion, 
viz.  the  fact  that  certain  Ideas  belong  to  a  single  'group'. 

In  the  same  List  (on  p.  185),  we  find  Colonies,  Roads, 
and  Extension  of  Rights :  these  are  not  only  members 
of  the  same  'group',  but  they  also  have  a  Connexion 
zvitJi  one  auotlicr.  The  Roman  Colonies  were  situated 
along  the  great   Roads  :    in   fact  the  Roads  stretched 


264  //<9?f   TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

between  Rome  and  her  Colonies ;  the  subject  of  Roads, 
then,  might  easily  lead  to  the  subject  of  Colonies,  or 
vice  versa.  What  would  be  the  Connexion  between 
the  Roads  and  the  Extension  of  Rights?  Obviously 
the  Roads  would  help  to  extend  Roman  influences, 
and,  when  Roman  influences  were  being  extended, 
Roman  privileges  were  being  extended  also.  The  next 
Heading  is  the  Allies :  what  might  be  the  Connexion 
between  the  Allies  and  the  Extension  of  Rights? 
Apparently  there  would  be  very  little,  but  the  two 
could  be  linked  together  in  some  such  way  as  this. 
The  Romans  extended  their  Rights  and  privileges  to 
those  whom  they  had  conquered  and  to  those  whom 
they  feared  as  enemies,  but  they  also  often  extended 
them  to  faithful  Allies. 

The  Connexion,  then,  besides  such  a  Connexion  as 
where  one  Idea  is  a  Cause  or  Hindrance  or  an  Effect, 
would  frequently  depend  merely  on  some  casual  link. 
One  knows  how,  in  conversation,  something  which 
happens  to  be  mentioned  in  one  subject  leads  people  on 
to  quite  a  new  subject:  this  new  subject  in  its  turn  leads 
people  on  to  some  third  subject,  although  there  may  be 
no  t-eal  Connexion  between  the  three  subjects  :  perhaps 
the  Idea  which  leads  from  one  to  another  may  have 
very  little  to  do  with  either  of  them.  The  Connexion, 
then,  may  include  anything  which  links  one  Idea 
to  another.  See  further  "How  to  Remember"  (to  be 
published  in  February,  1900,  by  Warne  &  Co.). 

Of  course  much  of  the  Connexion  can  be  shown 
by  the  mere  Arrangement  (p.  172).  If  the  Headings  and 
Sub-Headings  are  carefully  Arranged,  each  may  be 
made  to  lead  naturally  to  the  next,  so  that  the  whole 
appears  as  one  single  chain.     If  the  Headings  on  p.  185 


COXiYEXION  AND   COHESION  26; 

are  written  on  Cards,  each  having  a  Card  to  itself,  and 
if  the  Cards  are  then  shuffled,  it  will  be  found  that 
there  may  be  little  or  no  Connexion  between  any  Head- 
ing and  the  next  before  it  and  the  next  after  it :  one 
will  not  naturally  lead  to  the  next. 

Among  the  different  means  of  Connecting  Paragraphs 
may  be  mentioned  Comparisons  or  Contrasts.  You 
wish  to  pass  from  one  Idea  to  another,  and  you  find 
that  you  will  have  to  leap  or  jump  ;  there  seems  to 
be  no  bridge,  and  the  question  is  how  to  form  some 
bridge  or  link.  Good  Practice  for  this  will  be  to  study 
Loisette's  System  of  Memory,  e.g.  in  "How  to  Remember" 
(see  p.  264)  ;  in  fact  Loisette's  System  might  be  called 
the  Link-System ;  and  Comparisons  and  Contrasts  will 
very  often  be  a  great  help  as  Links. 

The  exact  Connexion  may  often  be  made  clearer  by 
actual  ivords.  '  Then  '  will  give  something  which  follows 
either  in  point  of  time,  or  as  a  result  or  inference  from 
the  first  Idea  ('therefore'),  and  'also'  and  'while'  will 
give  something  which  happens  very  often  side  by  side 
with  the  first  Idea  and  in  addition  to  it.  'But'  or 
'  although  '  will  give  something  opposed  to  the  Idea,  e.g. 
as  a  Hindrance.    '  For  '  or  '  because  '  will  give  a  Reason. 

Besides  these  Particles,  the  Connexion  may  be  shown 
by  some  word  in  the  previous  Idea  being  repeated,  or 
else  by  a  Pronoun  such  as  '  he  '  or  '  it '  or  '  this '.  The 
Connecting  word  need  not  come  in  the  ver)'  beginning 
of  the  Paragraph :  the  Beginning  had  often  better  be 
Interesting  :  and  indeed  the  reader  or  hearer  may 
have  his  attention  kept  on  the  alert  as  he  wonders 
what  on  earth  the  Connexion  is  going  to  be. 

Another  means  of  Connexion  is  the  Resunu'e,  an  in- 
stance of  which  may  be  given   here.      Supposing  >-ou 


266  HOW   TO   EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

have  six  reasons  for  somethinLj,  and  you  have  given  four 
reasons  one  after  the  other,  perhaps  in  four  consecutive 
Paragraphs  ;  and  supposing  the  last  Paragraph  is  a  long 
one :  let  us  call  these  four  reasons  A,  B,  C,  and  D  ;  the 
fifth  reason,  beginning  a  fifth  Paragraph,  may  now  be 
introduced  as  follows.  "  But  the  reason  for  this  was  not 
only  A,  B,  C,  and  D  :  there  was  yet  another  reason.  .  .  ."; 
and  then  one  proceeds  to  give  the  fifth  reason.  This 
method  is  of  great  value  because  it  not  only  serves 
to  Connect  the  fifth  reason  with  the  other  four,  but  it 
impresses  all  five  Reasons  together  upon  the  mind  of 
the  reader  or  hearer. 

It  is  important  to  notice  once  again  that  the  Con- 
nexion need  not  come  at  the  Beginning  of  a  Paragraph  : 
the  Paragraph  may  begin  with  the  mention  of  the  sub- 
ject or  Idea  of  the  Paragraph :  in  fact  this  is  a  most 
useful  Beginning  for  Paragraphs.  The  beginning  of 
Macaulay's  "  History  of  England  "  is  often  quoted  for 
this  :  he  mentions  the  scope  of  his  History. 

Or  (see  above)  the  Beginning  may  be  decided  by  the 
])rinciple  of  Interest,  and  the  Connexion  between  this 
and  the  preceding  Paragraph  may  come  afterwards. 
Sometimes  there  need  be  no  Connexion  at  all :  in  fact 
a  sudden  jerk,  a  sudden  transition  to  a  new  topic, 
will  often  be  far  more  impressive  than  any  Connexion 
can  be. 

Good  practice  in  Cohesion  or  Connexion  will  be 
to  take  any  Article  or  Chapter  or  Book  or  Speech  which 
leaves  in  your  mind  a  general  train  of  Ideas,  and  see 
why  and  how  it  is  that  the  Ideas  have  been  left  behind 
in  your  mind  in  that  particular  order.  The  practice 
will  be  still  better  if  you  take  some  Writer  who  is  well 
known   for  his   Arrangement,  for  instance  Burke,  and 


COA'A/iXrON  AND  COHESION  267 

analyse  on  Cards  one  of  his  works,  e.g.  his  work  on 
America;  then  take  the  Cards  and  shiijjfc  them,  and 
try  to  re-arrange  them  in  the  best  possible  order,  as  if 
you  were  yourself  going  to  address  the  House.  After- 
wards take  his  work,  and  see  what  his  order  is  and 
why  it  is  just  this  and  not  that,  and  why  it  is  better 
than  }-ours  for  his  particular  purpose. 

Another  exercise  is  to  criticise  bad  order.  Nothing 
is  commoner  than  a  piece  of  Composition  which  is  a 
.series  of  jerks  :  no  Idea  seems  to  lead  naturally  to  the 
next.  Take  these  Compositions,  and  criticise  them  ; 
then  re-arrange  the  Ideas  so  that  there  will  be  Connexion 
and  cohesion.  In  doing  this  you  will  notice  that  a  good 
deal  of  the  want  of  Connexion  is  due  to  the  Ideas 
being  arranged  in  a  bad  order,  and  to  the  Writer  per- 
petually fl}Mng  off  at  a  tangent,  drifting  away  from  the 
point. 

You  will  learn  from  this  that,  if  you  wish  \-our  Ideas 
to  be  closely  Connected  with  one  another,  you  must  pay 
great  attention  to  the  Law  of  Ecouoniy  and  of  Unity  : 
)'ou  must  not  stray  away  from  the  Idea  which  your  Para- 
graph is  describing. 

As  to  the  Connexion  between  the  various  words 
of  a  Sentence,  I  shall  leave  that  till  we  come  to 
Chapter  LIX. 


CHAPTER   XLIX.     EMPHASIS. 


As  we  saw  in  Chapter  222,  Force  and  Vigour  generally 
bring  Emphasis  with  them.  But  I  shall  here  treat 
Emphasis  as  a  special  subject,  partly  because  there 
are  other  means  of  Emphasis  besides-  Force  and 
Vigour. 

I  will  assume  that  you  already  have  a  list  of  the 
Headings  and  Sub-Headings  which  you  wish  to  Em- 
phasise, and  there  now  arises  the  question  of  how  you 
are  to  Emphasise  them,  and  to  Emphasise  some  more, 
but  others  less,  according  to  the  Underlining  (p.  170). 

In  Speaking,  you  instinctively  speak  louder,  or  you 
pause  more,  or  you  change  the  pitch  or  note,  and  so  on. 
The  nearest  approach  to  this  in  Writing  is  actual  Under- 
lining, Italics,  and  so  on. 

In  considering  how  to  lunphasise  any  given  Idea, 
let  us  first  of  all  ask  which  parts  of  a  word  or  of  a 
particular  Book  are  noticed  most.  The  answer  will 
obviously  be,  tJie  Beginning,  and  tJic  Ending.  We 
notice  the  Title  on  the  cover  of  a  Book,  and  from 
the  Beginning  a  good  many  people  are  apt  to  turn 
straight  to  the  End.  Some  of  them  then  have  the 
audacity  to  say  that  they  have  read  the  Book  !  In 
a  word  or  name,  also,  we  notice  the  Beginning,  the 
Initial  being  most  important,  and  the  Ending,  because 
it  lingers  longest  as  the  last  sound  we  hear.  Thus  the 
Beginning  and  the  Ending  will  be  places  of  Emphasis. 

268 


EMPHASIS  269 

But  now  let  us  take  another  Comparison.  Supposin^^ 
we  wished  to  hammer  a  nail  firmly  into  a  board,  we 
should  first  of  all  choose  the  rii;ht  place  in  the  wo(k1, 
perhaps  preparing  the  wood  e.g.  by  making  a  hole  in 
it  with  a  gimlet  or  bradawl.  Then  we  should  get  a 
clear  view  of  the  nail,  and  hit  it  straight  on  the  head. 
This  by  the  way  would  need  some  practice  beforehand. 
We  should  hit  it  with  force  and  vigour,  firmly  and 
quickly.  We  should  repeat  the  blows:  perhaps  each 
blow  would  not  be  quite  the  same  as  the  last,  but,  of 
course,  the  heavier  the  head  of  the  hammer  was,  the  more 
easily  would  the  nail  go  into  the  wood.  And  it  would 
also  be  an  advantage  to  draw  back  the  head  of  the 
hammer  before  we  struck.  Supposing  the  first  nail 
were  not  quite  secure,  we  should  add  another  nail  or  a 
screw  as  near  as  possible  to  the  first,  but  not  exactly  in 
the  same  place.  We  might  also  put  the  second  in  at  a 
different  angle  from  the  first. 

Strange  as  it  may  sound,  all  these  processes  will  find 
their  analogies  in  the  Emphasising  of  Ideas. 

Let  us  take  yet  another  principle.  We  can  bring  an 
object  into  prominence  by  throwing  a  very  strong  light 
on  to  that  object,  or  by  throwing  lights  on  to  it  from 
many  sides,  and  especially  by  throwing  upon  it  an 
unusual  and  unexpected  light,  and  best  of  all  by 
throwing  the  background  into  darkness. 

It  would  be  a  good  Exercise  for  the  reader,  in 
working  out  Comparisons  (p.  281),  to  try  for  himself 
how  this  can  all  be  applied  to  the  Emphasising  of 
Ideas,  before  he  reads  what  I  am  going  to  say  now. 


^^o  HOW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

Let  us  apply  these  principles. 

1.  First  of  all,  corresponding  to  the  Loudness,  etc., 
to  mark  Emphasis  there  would  be  Italics  or  Underlining, 
or  thick  black  type,  or  Capitals. 

2.  Then  there  might  be  a  pause  before  an  Emphatic 
point.  This  would  be  called  leading  up  to  a  Climax. 
The  expectation  would  be  raised  so  that  the  way  would 
be  prepared  for  the  important  Idea.  By  this  means 
Interest  would  be  aroused,  and  a  sense  of  expectancy. 
Thus,  for  example,  Emphasis  might  be  prepared  for  by 
means  of  a  Question. 

The  right  place  is  of  great  importance :  the  Be- 
ginning is  one  emphatic  position,  and  the  Ending  is 
another  (see  p.  261). 

■  The  way  would  be  prepared  by  means  of  a  familiar 
and  easy  starting-point,  something  which  we  know 
already  better  than  the  thing  which  is  to  be  Em- 
phasised. By  this  means  the  point  will  be  clearly 
realised.     A   Comparison  would  therefore  be  useful. 

In  the  expression  of  the  Idea  there  must  be  brisk- 
ness. Clearness,  and  Brevity :  the  words  must  sharply  hit 
the  nail  straight  on  the  head,  and  this  will  need  con- 
siderable practice  beforehand. 

There  will  have  to  be  Force  and  Vigour  (see  p.  222) : 
they  are  very  very  hard  things  to  define.  Dignity 
and  Rapidity  are  among  the  common  characteristics 
of  Force  and  Vigour. 

Repetition  is  the  next  means,  and  it  is  the  commonest. 
We  can  repeat  the  exact  words,  or  we  can  change  the 
words  slightly,  varying  by  the  abstract,  the  concrete, 
or  (see  p.  273)  the  very  concrete,  and  varying  the  Voice, 
Mood,  Tense  and  the  forms  of  the  Sentence  (sec  p.  253). 


EMPHASIS  271 

On  p.  266  I  have  pointed  out  that  the  R^suinee  Method 
is  one  of  the  best  forms  of  Repetition  :  it  means  the 
gathering  up  of  all  the  old  before  you  proceed  to 
the  new. 

A  mass  of  words  (which  might  be  called  weight  or 
•bulk')  is  often  a  means  of  Emphasis:  the  number 
of  words  and  the  size  of  words  impress  the  eye,  and 
also  impress  the  ear,  and,  although  this  may  degenerate 
into  padding,  still  even  padding  has  its  advantages  for 
purposes  of  Emphasis.  If  you  give  an  important  Idea 
a  longer  time  in  which  to  impress  itself  upon  the  mind, 
it  will  impress  itself  upon  the  mind  more  firmly  than 
if  it  had  only  had  a  moment. 

Variety  vi  the  point  of  viezu  is  of  very  great  value, 
as  we  saw  on  pp.  181,  214.  We  get  to  know  a  place  quite 
well  if  we  pass  through  it  again  and  again,  and  not 
always  by  the  same  roads,  but  from  different  directions: 
we  get  to  know  each  of  its  features  better  and  better. 
Hence  there  must  be  changes,  which  will  keep  the 
attention  fixed,  and  these  can  be  made,  e.g.,  by  means 
of  Parallels,  Comparisons,  and  Contrasts. 

Among  Contrasts  we  may  include  nfntation  of  the 
wrong  vietv.  Few  means  of  Emphasising  are  more  im- 
portant than  Contrasts  and  refutation.  To  start  with 
the  question,  '  Is  it  so-and-so?'  and  then  to  prove  that 
it  is  not  so-and-so,  then  to  ask  '  Is  it  this  ? '  and  then 
to  prove  that  it  is  not  quite  this,  and  to  go  on  thus, 
may  help  more  than  anything  else  to  arouse  the  interest 
of  the  reader  or  hearer,  because  it  will  encourage  him 
to  think  ivith  you.  Some  of  the  greatest  Teachers 
have  used  this  means,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  passage 
from  the  New  Testament  (p.  212),  and  in  the  introduction 
to  Guizot's  "  History  of  Civilisation". 


272  HOW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

Another  very  useful  means  is  (see  p.  278)  the  tJirowing 
of  the  wiiniportajit  parts  into  the  background :  sometimes 
this  can  be  done  by  differences  of  type.  This  is  one 
of  the  parts  of  Composition  which  people  have  practised 
least  of  all.  Some  Americans  perhaps  err  most  with 
respect  to  Emphasising  too  many  things  :  they  suffer 
in  their  advertisements  and  in  their  notices  in  certain 
Papers,  because,  when  they  wish  to  Emphasise  an  Idea, 
they  have  no  further  means  at  their  disposal :  all  their 
best  means  (see  p.  247)  have  been  used  up  for  compara- 
tively unimportant  and  trivial  matters. 

That  which  is  striking  also  conduces  to  Emphasis,  as 
Carlyle's  writings  show.  Proverb,  Paradox,  Epigram, 
exaggeration,  humour,  and  unexpected  order  of  words, 
all  these  can  be  means  of  Emphasis. 

An  instance  would  illustrate  some  of  these  methods. 
Supposing  we  wished  to  Emphasise  the  division  of 
labour  which  had  already  begun  in  early  Rome,  we 
could  say  that  some  of  the  early  Romans  were  en- 
gaged in  war,  agriculture,  and  politics,  while  others 
were  engaged  in  trading  and  industries.  We  might 
emphasise  this  point  by  means  of  italics,  etc.  We 
might  arouse  attention  by  asking  what  were  the  means 
by  which  Rome  succeeded  :  this  question  could  come 
at  the  Beginning.  We  might,  though  this  is  by  the 
way,  Emphasise  the  Idea  by  means  of  a  picture  or 
drawing ;  and  we  might  also  Emphasise  it  by  pointing 
out  how  the  health  of  the  Romans  was  promoted  by 
their  variety  of  labour. 

A  clear  statement  of  the  facts  would  be  very 
necessary,  and  it  is  astonishing  how  much  practice  is 
needed  before  a  clear  statement  can  be  given.  The 
statement  might  be   made  striking,  or  pjrevity  might 


EMPHASTS  273 

be  ensured,  by  the  omission  of  unnecessary  words. 
Then  the  exact  words  might  be  repeated,  or  the  idea 
might  be  repeated  in  a  more  Concrete  form.  For 
instance  it  might  be  said  that  the  early  Romans  were 
mostly  farmers,  politicians,  soldiers,  shepherds,  traders, 
and  so  on.  A  still  more  Concrete  way  of  expressing 
this  idea  would  be  "  Cato  was  a  type  of  the  early 
Roman  :  he  was  a  farmer,  a  soldier,  a  politician,  etc." 
This  would  be  nearly  the  most  Concrete  form  of  all.  The 
best  method  of  repeating  this  idea  would  be  to  gather 
it  up  at  the  end,  by  a  Resuvu'e  (p.  266). 

Among  other  means  may  be  mentioned  a  lengthy 
Paragraph  (p.  312)  in  which  the  Idea  is  described;  and 
the  use  of  long  words  within  the  Paragraph.  English  or 
other  Parallels  would  be  good,  and  Comparisons,  such 
as  the  analogy  of  the  ants,  and  their  division  of  labour. 
Contrasts  also  would  be  of  service :  the  Romans  might 
be  contrasted  with  the  nomads  and  barbarians,  among 
whom  little  division  of  labour  is  known.  Under  Con- 
trast, we  might  expose  the  Fallacy  that  the  Romans 
were  mere  warriors,  or  were  mere  farmers. 

The  rest  of  the  points  which  we  do  not  wish  to 
emphasise  could  be  put  in  such  ordinary  language  that 
they  might  attract  little  attention.  This  would  help  to 
throw  up  the  more  important  fact  that  tJie  Romans  had 
division  of  labour.  Besides  this,  Paradox,  Epigrams, 
and  exaggeration  might  be  brought  into  pla\'.  It 
would  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  in  early  Rome 
there  was  not  a  single  idle  man  :  but  it  would  not  be 
very  far  from  the  truth.  A  humorous  description  of 
Cincinnatus  might  help  to  impress  the  Idea  upon  the 
mind. 

To  these  we  can  add  yet  other  means  of  Emphasis, 
r 


274  ^OW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

We  often  remember  things  better  when  we  know  what 
has  caused  them,  or  what  has  helped  them,  and  what  has 
been  their  effect.  For  instance,  we  should  remember 
the  History  of  Rome  far  better  if  we  knew  the 
Geography  which  had  helped  to  make  that  History, 
and  we  should  know  the  Geography  far  better,  in  its 
turn,  if  we  knew  its  effects  on  Roman  History.  And  so 
we  should  remember  the  division  of  labour  better  if 
we  knew  some  of  its  causes,  for  instance,  the  fact  that 
the  Romans  had  defences  and  buildings  of  stone,  and 
that  they  were  trained  by  constantly  fighting  with  some 
of  their  enemies.  We  might  remember  this  division  of 
labour  better  if  we  remembered  its  effects,  for  instance 
its  effects  upon  health  and  upon  progress. 

I  began  with  an  illustration,  and  I  will  now  give 
another.  If  some  General  were  attacking  an  enemy,  and 
wished  to  succeed,  what  would  be  his  method  ?  First 
of  all  he  would  have  practised  a  good  deal  beforehand. 
Then  he  would  try  to  draw  the  enemy  on  to  his  own 
ground,  or  at  any  rate  he  would  learn  the  enemy's 
ground,  and  as  much  about  the  enemy  as  he  could. 
He  would  learn  their  strong  and  weak  points.  Then 
he  would  probably  concentrate  his  forces  on  one  par- 
ticular point,  reserving  some  of  his  forces  however  in 
case  this  attack  should  fail.  This  illustration  might 
be  of  value  towards  a  study  of  Emphasis.  If  you  wish 
to  impress  a  thing  upon  the  mind,  put  yourself  in  the 
reader's  position,  and  then  study  his  point  of  view :  in 
order  to  make  quite  sure,  it  is  better  to  approach  a 
thing  from  too  many  points  of  view  than  from  too 
few. 

A  hint  may  be  offered  here  about  t/ie  order  of  zvords. 
Just  as  the  General  must  pay  a  great  deal  of  attention 


EMPHASTS  275 

to  the  order  and  disposition  of  his  troops  if  he  wishes 
to  produce  a  definite  effect,  so  the  Writer  must  pay 
attention  to  the  order  and  disposition  of  his  words. 
A  natural  order  of  words  in  a  Sentence  would  be 
Subject,  Adverb,  Verb,  and  Object,  though  this  is  liable 
to  many  variations.  Now  supposing  we  wish  to  Em- 
phasise the  Verb,  we  should  not  leave  it  in  the  middle, 
but  should  put  it  at  the  Biglnnitig.  The  Adverb  also 
may  often  be  put  at  the  iDCginning,  and  the  Object  as 
well.  The  Subject  of  the  Sentence,  on  the  other  hand, 
would  not  be  Emphatic  if  it  came  at  the  Beginning : 
the  Emphatic  place  for  it  would  be  the  End. 

A  very  common  Greek  and  Latin  means  of  Em- 
phasis must  never  be  forgotten,  viz,  the  Anticipation 
of  an  Idea  or  Word  by  a  Pronoun  like  '  this '.  We 
can  imagine  the  Greek  or  Latin  Speaker  using  gesture 
as  well,  when  he  said  "But  I  know  this:  he  never  yet 
has  acted  save  for  his  own  interests "  (cp.  the  origin 
of  'that',  in  of  'he  said  that  it  was  so'*)  'They 
did  it  for  the  following  reason  :  (viz.  that)  they  were 
afraid  of  our  power'. 

This  '  Figure '  rouses  the  interest  by  suspense :  or  it 
may  be  compared  to  a  sign-post  or  to  a  hand  pointing 
towards  the  important  thing. 

The  reverse  of  this  would  often  be  less  effective, 
e.g.  '  The\'  \\ere  afraid  of  our  power :  this  was  wh\' 
they  did  it '. 

Closely  akin  to  it  is  the  English  '  It  was  by  him 
that  the  Drama  was  purified ',  '  It  is  this  that  we  need '. 
The  Greeks  and  Latins  could  change  their  order  of 
words  far  more  freely  than  we  can,  since  we,  for 
example,  generally  ha\'e  to  rely  on  the  order  to  show 

*   II  lias  no  Emphasis  now. 


276  HOW  TO  EXPRESS   WE  AS:    STYLE 

which  is  the  Subject  and  which  is  the  Object  (in  '  The 
orator  abused  the  general ').  Our  '  Cu'cinnlociition ',  then, 
is  often  almost  our  only  weapon.  It  owes  part  of  its 
effect  to  the  bulk  of  words,  as  if  one  were  to  say 
'  By  him,  by  him,  by  him  .  .  .' 

It  is  curious  that  Emphasis  may  be  given  both  by 
many  words  and  by  few  words  :  the  many  words  (even 
if  not  u'ell  chosen)  are  to  some  extent  like  the  large- 
headed  hammer  (see  p.  269):  they  have  mass  and  '  bulk ', 
and  the  eye  and  ear  are  arrested  for  a  longer  time ;  the 
few  words  (if  well  chosen)  are  more  like  the  straight 
and  well-aimed  blow  with  the  smaller-headed  hammer : 
they  arrest  the  understanding,  which  unconsciously 
blesses  them  for  being  brief  and  business-like. 

Connectives  also  may  be  many  or  few :  there  may 
be  the  slowly  and  carefully  uttered  items  ('  beef  and 
bread  and  cheese  and  beer  and  tobacco'),  or  the  short 
sharp  incisive  list  ('beef,  bread,  cheese,  beer,  tobacco'). 
The  latter  is  rather  more  appropriate  to  exciting 
passages. 

The  reader  should  take  Bain's  "  Rhetoric  and  Composition ", 
and  study  and  practise  the  many  means  of  Emphasis  which  he 
suggests  :  my  Book  does  not  deal  primarily  with  details  of  the 
kind.  Let  the  reader  notice  the  effect  of  such  '  Figures '  as  the 
following.     See  further  p.  299. 

{a)  Inversion,  e.g.  'life  eternal' ; 

(//)  'Metonymy'  etc.,  e.g.  'sail'  meaning  'ship'  ('Part  for 
Whole');  'red  tape'  meaning  'official  formaUties' 
('Accompanying  sign')  ;  'linen'  meaning  'linen  sheets' 
('Material');  'the  pen'  meaning  'written  words' 
('Instrument');  'Bradshaw'  meaning  "  Bradshaw's 
Guide"  ('Agent');  'the  purse'  meaning  'money' 
('  Contents') ;  '  the  bright  death'  meaning  'the  weapon' 
('  Effect ')  ;  and  so  on. 


EMPHASIS  277 

Some  of  the  above  may  become  quite  commonplace,  and  may 
lose  their  Emphasis  altogether. 

(t)  ^  Chios  mil  s\  e.g. 

'here  to-day,  to-morrow  gone'. 

{d)   Word-play,  e.g. 

'what  I  have  written,  I  have  written'  (quoted  by  Bain:  here 
the  second  '  I  have  written'  means  '  I  have  written  once  for  all :  it 
is  final  ')• 

These  are  but  a  few  of  the  means  of  Emphasis :  but 
I  do  not  wish  to  make  this  Chapter  too  bulky  by  a 
fuller  list.  The  reader  who  wishes  for  farther  informa- 
tion may  study  the  Chapter  (p.  299)  on  Rhetorical 
Devices:  nine-tenths  of  them  may  be  used  (partly)  in 
order  to  draw  the  attention  to  some  important  point. 
But  the  above  means  will  suffice  for  ordinary  purposes : 
only  the  art  of  Emphasising  must  be  practised  all  by 
itself     It  is  not  acquired  in  a  day. 

Note. 

This  Chapter  is  badly  put  togcLhcr.  After  I  had 
written  it,  I  came  across  several  useful  books  that  I 
had  not  seen  before.  Instead  of  re- writing  the  Chapter, 
I  thought  I  would  leave  it  for  the  reader  to  Analyse 
into  Headings,  and  then  (sec  p.  172  foil.)  to  Arrange, 
with  special  attention  to  the  Order  and  Connexions. 


CHAPTER  L.     ABSENCE  OF  EMPHASIS. 


To  emphasise  an  Idea  is  much  easier  (if  the  art  has 
been  practised)  than  to  state  an  Idea  without  Emphasis, 
or  rather,  to  throw  it  into  the  background.  So  it  is 
often  necessary  to  practise  self-restraint,  and  to  make 
some  Sentences  purposely  unemphatic  or  even  weak. 
if  the  Emphasis  and  Vigour  is  to  have  its  full  effect 
when  it  is  really  needed. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  Advertisements,  especially 
some  American  Advertisements.  What  a  great  deal  is 
needed  before  the  attention  is  arrested  and  fixed. 
This  is  because  the  attention  has  so  often  been  arrested 
and  fixed  where  little  or  no  attention  was  deserved. 

Purposely  to  weaken  an  idea  is  a  hard  art.  But  a 
few  hints  may  help. 

The  unemphatic  position  in  the  Essay  or  Paragraph 
is  generally  the  latter  end  of  the  middle  :  here  should  be 
put  some  of  the  '  bulk '  of  the  food,  as  it  were,  the  fibrous 
matter,  as  opposed  to  the  appetising  elements. 

The  Idea  should  be  expressed  once  only,  in  simple 
language,  with  no  striking  words  or  order  of  words 
or  Rhythm.  There  should  be  no  Rhetorical  Question, 
no  forcible  Comparison  or  Contrast,  no  Epigram. 

A  good  Exercise  might  be  to  read  a  Daily  Paper,  or 
an  American  Paper,  and  re-write  it,  taking  care  that 
Emphasis  shall  fall  only  on  what  you  consider  to  be 
the  really  important  points. 

278 


CHAPTER    LI.    PARALLELS. 


In  this  Chapter  I  shall   say  very  httle,  leaving  most 
of  my  remarks  for  the  next  Chapter  (Comparisons). 

Parallels  (in  spite  of  what  many  Authorities  say) 
must  be  worked  out  separately.  In  an  Essay  on  Cicero, 
for  example,  it  will  not  do  to  trust  to  some  Parallel 
'presenting  itself  naturally  to  you'  (see  p.  174).  This 
may  do  well  enough  for  the  genius,  but  for  the  learner 
it  may  mean  that  no  Parallel  will  present  itself.  For 
the  learner  a  better  piece  of  advice  will  be  '  Search  if 
you  wish  to  find '.  It  may  be  some  little  time  before 
e.g.  Demosthenes  and  Gladstone  '  present  themselves '. 
And,  even  when  the  names  are  chosen,  that  is  not  all  : 
it  remains  to  be  seen  how  far  each  of  these  Orators 
is  '  parallel  '  to  Cicero,  and  how  far  he  is  to  be  con- 
trasted with  Cicero. 

Nor  is  even  this  sufficient.  For  Cicero  was  not  only 
an  orator:  he  was  also  what  we  should  call  a  'gentle- 
man ' :  here  we  might  compare  Xenophon  with  him. 
As  a  letter-writer,  he  suggests  comparison  and  contrast 
with  Pliny  ;  and  so  on. 

In  fact,  unless  this  branch  of  Essay-writing  be 
worked  out  by  itself,  it  will  be  done  badly.  And,  as 
we  shall  see  (p.  284),  it  is  a  very  important  branch :  for 
it  gives  Variety,  it  gives  Interest,  it  gives  Emphasis,  and 
it  may  give  Clearness.  It  demands  much  care  and 
labour. 

279 


28o  NOIV  TO  EXPJ^ESS  WEAS:    STYLE 

For  what  points  are  we  to  find  Parallels  ?  For  points 
which  we  wish  to  emphasise  (see  p.  170),  and  for  points 
which  we  wish  merely  to  make  clear,  and  (occasionally) 
for  points  which  we  wish  to  make  interesting.  If  we 
have  to  consider  certain  characteristics  of  Philip  of 
Macedon,  or  Julius  Caesar,  we  should  find  that  a 
Comparison  (and  Contrast)  with  Napoleon  might  serve 
all  these  purposes. 


CHAPTER    LI  I.     COMPARISONS,  ANALOGIES,  ETC. 


Of  Parallels  we  have  already  said  a  few  words :  we  saw 
how,  if  one  wished  to  show  that  Philip  of  Macedon  was  a 
great  General,  a  great  Nation-maker,  and  an  unscrupulous 
Diplomatist,  the  bare  statement  might  not  be  enough : 
one  might  have  to  try  to  find  some  Parallel  in  order  to 
make  these  three  points  clear,  and  to  Emphasise  them. 
And  we  found,  as  a  Parallel,  Napoleon.  We  know  that 
Napoleon  was  a  great  General,  relying  as  Philip  did  on 
the  charge  of  his  cavalry,  we  know  that  he  was  to  some 
extent  a  Nation-maker,  or  at  any  rate  a  '  welder '  of  the 
Nation,  and  we  know  that  he  was  also  a  Diplomatist. 

We  now  come  to  something  rather  wider  than  the 
Parallel,  and  that  is  the  Comparison  or  Analogy  or 
Illustration. 

It  is  a  great  mistake,  a  great  fallacy,  to  say  to 
Speakers,  or  Essay-Writers,  or  Writers  generall}-,  ''Do 
not  search  for  Comparisons,  but  only  use  them  if  they 
come  of  their  own  accord  :  otherwise  your  Comparison 
will  be  forced  and  unnatural."  This  is  all  very  well  for 
the  genius  or  for  the  experienced  Writer;  but  just  con- 
sider my  own  case.  When  I  began  this  Book,  I  wanted 
to  make  it  clear  to  the  reader  that  Essay-Writing  was 
a  very  difficult  and  complicated  art :  but  no  Comparison 
or  Illustration  of  this  occurred  to  me  at  once  and 
naturally.  Is  it  then  true  that  I  should  have  used  no 
Comparison  at  all  ?    Of  course  not.    I  had  to  search  and 

2S1 


282  HOW   TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

think  of  something  which  would  illustrate  my  point, 
i.e.  make  it  clear  and  emphasise  it.  After  a  while  it 
occurred  to  me  that  Building  was  one  appropriate  Com- 
parison (see  p.  xv),  and  that  the  playing  of  Games  was 
another  (see  pp.  xiv,  xix).  The  latter  I  chose  because 
it  came  within  my  own  experience,  the  former  I  chose 
because  it  was  very  easy  to  understand.  I  ask  the 
reader  to  read  once  or  twice  the  passages  referred  to, 
and  then  to  decide  whether  or  no  these  Comparisons 
or  Illustrations  helped  to  make  my  meaning  clearer. 
Possibly  the  reader  may  be  able  to  see  that  the  Com- 
parisons have  been  worked  out  separately,  that  they  did 
not  come  to  me  uncalled-for  and  unsought.  But  I  think 
that  if  they  emphasise  the  complexity  of  the  art,  they 
are  better  expressed  than  unexpressed,  even  though 
they  have  some  disadvantages.  The  'joints'  and  the 
'mechanism '  may  appear,  it  is  true,  but  it  is  better  that 
they  should  appear  than  that  the  writing  should  be 
obscure,  or  the  point  passed  over  unnoticed.  Moreover, 
with  careful  practice,  the  'joints'  will  come  to  be  covered 
over,  and  the  'mechanism',  though  it  may  not  be  quite 
hidden,  will  at  any  rate  work  more  smoothly  and  easily  : 
the  clumsy  laboriousness  in  the  early  stages  is  almost 
bound  to  disappear  and  to  give  way  to  neatness  and 
skill. 

It  is  for  this  purpose  that  I  suggest  the  special 
Exercises  at  the  end  of  this  Chapter.  After  the  reader 
has  seen  what  the  advantages  of  Comparisons  are,  he 
will  be  able  to  judge  whether  these  Exercises  are 
worth  trying  or  not. 

Before  I  begin  pointing  out  the  uses  and  values  of 
Comparisons,  let  me  give  one  or  two  more  instances.  Let 
the  reader  look  at  p.  269.     He  will  see  that  Emphasis  is 


COMPARISONS,  ANALOGIES,  ETC.  283 

the  subject.  I  wislied  to  make  clear  to  the  ordinary 
reader,  the  idea  of  Emphasis  and  the  means  of  giving 
Emphasis.  I  therefore  chose  the  Comparison  of  the 
hammer  and  nail,  and  the  Hght. 

Supposing,  again,  I  wished  to  make  clear  the  Roman 
system  of  Roads  and  Colonies,  and  to  show  what  they 
were  like,  how  they  were  placed,  and  what  effects  they 
had,  or  what  was  their  relation  to  Rome  itself,  I  might 
give,  among  other  Comparisons,  that  of  the  spider  and 
its  legs.  I  might  say  that  the  legs  of  the  spider  go  out 
in  various  directions  from  the  body,  that  they  are  all 
attached  to  the  body,  that  the  blood  circulates  from  the 
body  to  the  legs  and  back  again.  I  might  say  that 
the  feelers  at  the  end  of  the  legs  are  far  off  from  the 
body,  and  in  various  directions,  and  that  yet  they 
depend  on  the  body  for  knowing  what  to  do,  and 
for  being  fed  and  protected,  while  the  body  itself  could 
not  easily  reach  in  various  directions  and  far  off  without 
these  feelers. 

It  stands  to  reason  that,  if  the  subject  is  well  known, 
the  best  Comparisons  will  come  more  easily  and  more 
rapidly,  so  that  the  greatest  help  in  finding  Comparisons 
will  be  to  learn  the  subject  thoroughly,  and  to  study 
it  from  many  points  of  view. 

As  to  the  numerous  uses  and  values  of  Comparisons, 
they  depend  on  these  Comparisons  being  used  in  the 
right  way  ;  and  the  first  point  to  notice  is  that  they 
must  be  perfectly  dear  not  only  to  the  Writer  but  also 
to  tlie  reader.  The  Writer  has  to  put  himself  into 
the  position  of  the  reader  before  he  can  be  sure  that 
the  Comparison  is  the  right  one. 

It  follows  from  this  that  those  Comparisons  which 
appeal    to    )nost  people   will   be   the  best  for  ordinary 


284  HOW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

purposes  :  see  p.  236.  It  will  be  necessary  to  start  with 
what  the  reader  knows,  and  with  what  is  familiar  to 
him,  before  one  proceeds  to  the  new  point  which  one 
wishes  to  make  clear  and  to  Emphasise. 

The  great  secret  in  working  out  Comparisons,  then, 
is  to  try  to  find  what  is  familiar  to  the  average  reader. 

(i)  Comparisons  help  to  make  the  ^omis  clearer.  One 
simple  way  of  expressing  an  Idea  may  fail  to  attract 
some  reader's  attention,  and  the  Comparison  may  just 
suppl)'  this  want.  It  is  for  this  reason,  namel}',  the 
value  of  Comparison  for  Clearness,  that  they  must  be 
used  in  Teaching,  or  at  any  rate  in  the  early  stages  of 
Teaching. 

(2)  Comparisons,  if  they  are  well  chosen,  arouse  Interest, 
partly  because  they  are  understood,  and  partly  because 
they  are  striking.  They  often  actually  give  a  feeling  of 
pleasure,  or  at  any  rate  of  satisfaction. 

(3)  They  therefore  help  the  Memory ;  for  it  is  easiest 
to  remember  what  is  understood  and  what  is  interesting. 
Moreover  they  often  serve  as  links,  and  improve  the 
pow'er  of  associating  Ideas. 

(4)  They  encourage  people  to  use  their  reasoning 
powers,  and  to  draw  Inferences. 

(5)  Repetition  is  often  needed  throughout  life,  but 
mere  Repetition  is  apt  to  be  tedious.  Now  a  Com- 
parison is  a  kind  of  Repetition,  while  not  appearing  to 
be  one.  We  see  this  in  the  case  of  Philip  and  Napoleon 
(p.  281),  and  in  many  other  cases  as  well. 

(6)  For  this  cause,  Comparisons  are  an  excellent 
means  of  Emphasising,  for,  as  we  saw  on  p.  216, 
Emphasis  can  be  given  by  Repetition.  If,  therefore, 
a  Comparison  is  a  kind  of  a  Repetition,  then  it  can 
also  become  the  means  of  giving  Emphasis. 


coMPARisnys,  ANArnarFS,  etc.  285 

(7)  The  great  advantage  of  a  Comparison  over  a  mere 
Repetition  is  that  it  ensures  Vat-ieiy.  The  idea  may  be 
nearly  the  same,  but  the  point  of  view  may  be  changed. 

(8)  In  Comparisons  also  there  is  some  scope  for 
Huuwnr,  which  is  generally  excluded  from  the  more 
serious  Essay,  and  perhaps  rightly  so. 

(9)  More  generally  speaking,  Comparisons  encourage 
originality,  and  observation  ;  and,  in  our  present 
Educational  System  in  England,  originality  and  ob- 
servation are  not  much  encouraged  :  they  are  generally 
sternly  crushed.  Every  now  and  then  one  notices 
how  apt  a  little  child's  illustrations  are,  and  how  they 
describe  an  idea  far  more  neatly  than  a  grown-up 
person  is  wont  to.  There  is  a  great  deal  to  be  learnt 
from  this  and,  among  other  lessons,  the  fact  that  this 
power  of  Illustration  is  not  cultivated  nearly  enough 
as  life  advances.  The  little  girl  who  said  that  after 
influenza  her  legs  were  very  "giddy",  was  using  (un- 
consciously) a  most  vivid  Comparison,  and  it  would 
be  impossible  to  think  of  any  better  means  of  describ- 
ing the  feeling. 

(10)  Comparisons  will  encourage  very  wide  learning 
and  studying,  especially  the  studying  of  Nature  and 
human  nature.  They  will  give  a  fresh  interest  to  a  walk 
in  the  country  or  in  a  town,  if  one  knows  that  the  walk 
may  supply  illustrations  which  will  help  one's  powers 
of  Writing  or  Speaking. 

(11)  For  Comparisons  help  to  connect  the  various 
Sciences,  and  the  different  departments  of  life,  with 
one  another.  In  fact,  they  counteract  one  great  fault 
in  our  Education,  namely,  that  so  many  studies  are 
carried  on  quite  separatel}'.  By  Comparisons  one  learns 
to  see  that  the  various  studies  are  closely  connected 


286  HOW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

with  one  another.  Indeed,  there  are  certain  principles 
which  apply  to  almost  every  subject,  and,  if  we  can 
learn  them  in  the  case  of  any  one  subject,  and  can  also 
get  the  power  of  Comparing  things,  we  can  easily  apply 
these  same  principles  to  other  subjects  also. 

(12)  Thus  the  power  of  comparing  things  may  save 
a  great  deal  of  tijue  and  labour,  besides  being  a  little 
Education  in  itself. 

(13)  The  person  \\\\o  can  Compare  things  and  work 
out  Analogies  readily  will  be  able  to  use  masses  and 
masses  of  information  which  otherwise  he  would  never 
use  at  all.  In  the  lumber-room  of  his  mind  he  will 
find  thousands  of  odds  and  ends  which  will  no  longer 
grow  dusty  from  not  being  employed,  but  will  be  taken 
out  and  applied  for  valuable  purposes.  For  example, 
he  knows  much  about  Games,  and,  when  he  has  acquired 
the  power  of  Comparing  things,  he  will  be  able  to  use 
Games  to  illustrate  great  principles  such  as  (see  p.  289) 
Co-operation,  etc. 

(14)  Thus  every  subject,  however  great  or  however 
small,  will  be  made  interesting  and  useful. 

(15)  Sympathy  with  others  cannot  fail  to  be  increased 
in  the  person  who  is  constantly  asking  himself:  "What 
will  the  average  reader  most  readily  understand  ? 
What  is  there  in  his  mind,  already,  by  means  of  which 
I  can  describe  this  new  Idea  to  him?"  And  this  is 
not  all,  for 

(16)  Comparisons  suggest  many  7icw  points.  Take  an 
example.  You  wish  to  find  out  and  you  try  to  work  out 
wliat  are  the  Bonds  of  Union  between  England  and  her 
Colonies.  You  arrive  at  certain  Ideas,  after  a  long  time. 
But  supposing  you  ask  yourself  another  question,  viz. 
"  What  are  the  Bonds  of  Union  between  two  members 


COMPARISONS,   ANALOGIES,   ETC.  287 

of  one  family?",  then  you  could  easily  work  out  the 
answer,  because  you  would  be  starting  with  something 
familiar  to  yourself,  in  fact,  part  of  your  everyday 
experience.  This  second  question  would  suggest  many 
Ideas  (see  p.  112)  which  would  not  occur  to  you  at  all 
if  you  considered  the  first  question  all  by  itself  And 
the  same  would  apply  if  you  first  considered  the 
advantages  of  an  Absolute  Monarchy  in  a  State,  and 
then  the  advantages  of  the  Family  being  ruled  by  a 
good  father. 

(17)  Comparisons  and  Analogies  are  also  valuable 
Evidences.  Perhaps  they  rather  suggest  things  than 
prove  them,  but  still  they  are  somewhat  of  the  nature 
of  a  proof  The  mere  fact  that  the  Family  succeeds 
under  the  government  of  a  good  father  is  a  kind  of  a 
proof  that  a  State  might  succeed  under  the  government 
of  a  good  Monarch. 

(18)  P^or  Literary  purposes,  Comparisons  may  form 
transitions  and  links  between  one  Paragraph  and 
another,  or  between  one  Sentence  and  another. 

For  the  Classes  and  Uses  of  Metaphors  and  other 
'  Tropes ',  I  must  refer  to  special  works  on  Rhetoric. 
Metaphors,  etc.,  may  serve  much  the  same  purpose 
as  Comparisons,  and  had  very  similar  origins,  though 
now  many  of  them  (such  as  '  I  see  and  understand 
and  grasp  what  you  're  hammering  into  me ')  have 
passed  or  are  passing  into  our  eyeryday  language. 
They  are  losing  their  vividness,  and  becoming  com- 
monplace and  regular  means  of  expression.* 

l^ut,  even  when  they  have  almost  passed  into  this 
language,  even  then  they  must  not  be  'mixed'  rashly, 
•  See  "  How  to  Learn  Philology"  (Sonnenschein),  p.  223. 


288  HOJV  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

as  on  p.  254,  or  even  as  in  the  sentence  bracketed  above. 
In  such  cases  it  is  safer  to  appeal  to  the  most  refined 
and  particular  ear  ;  so  that,  if  it  is  felt  that  '  under  these 
circumstances'  (see  p.  207)  might  offend  him  who 
remembers  that  circumstantia  were  once  'things  that 
stand  around',  the  word  '  under'  should  be  avoided,  and 
perhaps  the  phrase  '  under  these  conditions '  should  be 
substituted. 

Classes  of  Comparisons  and  Analogies. 

The  different  classes  of  Comparisons  or  Analogies 
cannot  all  be  mentioned  here.  It  must  also  constantly 
be  remembered  that  no  Comparison  is  an  exact 
Parallel  :  things  can  only  resemble  one  another 
partially.  But,  in  the  choice  of  Comparisons,  there 
is  one  principle  which  is  almost  universal,  and  that 
is  to  describe  tvhat  is  not  well  known  by  zvhat  is  better 
knozvn,  especially  by  what  appeals  to  the  senses  of 
sight,  hearing,  touch,  and  taste.  And  in  each  case 
the  thing  which  is  Compared  must  be  better  known, 
and  more  familiar,  not  only  to  yourself  but  also  to  the 
reader  or  hearer. 

The  best  Comparisons  and  Analogies  are  from 
Nature,  the  plants  and  their  seeds,  the  animals,  the 
'elements'  of  Nature,  such  as  heat  and  light:  all  these 
have  formed  the  stock-in-trade  of  Writers  and  Speakers, 
and  many  of  them  have  passed  into  the  class  of  every- 
day words.  Indeed,  Language  has  been  called  a  store- 
house of  faded  Metaphors  * 

Family  life,  again,  gives  many  useful  Comparisons 
(see  p.  286),  and  so  do  the  various  occupations  in  life, 
e.g.  not  only  feeding  but  also  the  more  serious 
*  See  "  How  lo  Learn  Philology"  (Sonnenschein). 


COMPARISONS,   ANALOGIES,   ETC.  289 

occupations,  sucli  as  business — and  athletics.  In  fact,  all 
that  men  do,  ail,  that  is  to  say,  that  appeals  to  the 
public,  can  be  made  a  means  of  Expressing  and 
Emphasising  a  new  Idea.  For  instance,  on  p.  xv, 
we  alluded  to  the  art  of  Building,  and,  on  p.  xiv,  to 
the  art  of  learning  Games. 

T/ie  N'ew  Testament  should  be  very  carefully  studied, 
as  it  gives  a  good  idea  of  the  best  Metaphors  and 
Analogies  for  Literary  purposes.  IMatthew's  Gospel 
alone  would  be  an  admirable  field  for  research,  and  this 
I  should  suggest  as  the  first  kind  of  Exercise,  namely, 
to  go  through  various  Writers  and  to  see  what  Com- 
parisons they  use  (p.  214),  and  what  are  the  most  effective 
Comparisons. 

There  are  two  other  kinds  of  Exercise  as  well. 
A  Class  of  boys  at  School,  for  example,  might  be 
asked  what  lessons  Football  teaches,  what  it  illustrates. 
This  form  of  Exercise  would  be  to  take  soniething 
ivliich  is  familiar,  ami  then  to  find  out  for  zv/iat 
Comparisons  it  can  be  used :  or  in  other  words  how  to 
apply  an  Analogy  which  is  already  given  to  them. 
Thus  Football  might  illustrate  Co-operation,  Special- 
isation, and  the  effects  of  Practice ;  it  might  illustrate 
Endurance,  Promptitude,  and  Pluck,  and  also  Com- 
petition in  its  best  form,  and  the  value  of  government 
by  a  single  person  :  and  many  other  things  from  the 
list  above  can  be  treated  as  Exercises  of  the  same 
kind. 

The  third  Exercise  would  be  to  ask,  'Hozu  can  o)ie 
illustrate  sometJiing  which  is  less  zcell  knoivn  and  less 
familiar  to  the  reader  or  hearer?'  Using  the  above 
instance,  if  one  wished  to  illustrate  Co-operation  to 
boys  one  would  ask  what  thing  there  was  which 
U 


290  HOW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

was  well  known  to  boys,  and  which  would  illustrate 
this  principle ;  and  a  good  answer  would  be  a  Game 
of  Football  or  Cricket. 

Undoubtedly  this  last  Exercise  would  be  one  of 
the  best  for  Teachers,  for  it  would  force  them  to  ask 
themselves  a  question  which  they  may  often  have 
asked  themselves  in  their  daily  life,  but  may  seldom 
have  troubled  to  apply  in  teaching,  namely,  '  What  do 
the  learners  already  understand  ?  zuhat  is  familiar  to 
them  ?  on  zvhat  foundations  can  I  build  np  the  new 
Ideas  zvhich  I  wish  to  describe  to  them  ? ' 


CHAPTER  LI  1 1.     CONTRASTS. 


Contrasts  are  very  like  Comparisons  In  tlicir  effects 
and  in  their  value :  indeed,  what  I  have  said  about 
Comparisons  will  apply  almost  without  exception  to 
Contrasts.  These  two  great  helps  to  Clearness,  and 
Interest  (and  Pleasure  and  Satisfaction),  and  Variety, 
and  Emphasis,  can  be  used  as  alternatives,  or,  in  special 
cases,  can  be  used  side  by  side  to  supplement  one 
another. 

In  each  case  it  is  for  the  Writer  to  judge  whether  the 
Clearness  or  Emphasis  can  better  be  given  by  a  Com- 
parison or  by  a  Contrast. 

If  Freedom  were  to  be  described,  probably  it  would 
be  better  to  describe  it  by  its  Contrasts,  Slavery,  etc. 
We  cannot  properly  realise  what  light  is  unless  we  also 
consider  darkness.  Pleasure  would  not  be  pleasure  if 
we  are  always  in  the  same  state  :  before  we  can  realise 
what  pleasure  is,  we  must  have  either  the  condition  in 
which  we  feel  no  pleasure,  or  (better  still)  the  other 
extreme,  pain.  A  holida}',  again,  has  no  meaning  for 
a  person  who  never  works :  at  least  it  has  no  real 
meaning. 

To  show  the  value  of  Contrasts,  I  can  take  an  in- 
stance very  near  home.  If  I  wish  to  teach  the  art  of 
Essay-Writing,  I  can  do  my  best  to  show  how  the  art 
might  be  acquired,  or  how  it  would  not  be  acquired  : 
I  can  say  what  is  right,  or  what  is  wrong  ;  what  is  a 
merit,  or  what  is  a  fault.     If  I  wish  to  make  anything 

291 


292  HOIV  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

particularly  Clear  or  Emphatic,  then  I  shall  probably  use 
both  means.  I  shall  advise  the  reader  to  notice  what  is 
bad  as  well  as  what  is  good. 

A  special  branch  of  Contrasts  is  of  great  value  for 
the  beginning  of  a  Book,  or  of  an  Essay,  or  of  a  section 
of  an  Essay,  or  of  a  Speech  ;  and  this  is  the  plan  of 
excluding  and  Rejecting.  Guizot  began  his  "  History  of 
Civilisation "  by  asking  what  Civilisation  meant  :  he 
said,  '  Does  it  mean  this  ? '  and  the  answer  was  '  No ; 
not  only  this.'  Then  he  said  '  Does  it  mean  a  second 
thing?  '  and  the  answer  was  '  No,  not  merely  this  second 
thing.'  Finally  he  said  what  Civilisation  did  consist  of, 
after  he  had  paved  the  way  for  it  and  excited  the 
reader's  attention  and  had  cleared  the  ground  by  his 
statements  as  to  what  Civilisation  did  not  consist  of 
We  have  seen  a  similar  instance  in  the  New  Testament 
example  (on  p.  212):  in  order  to  describe  who  are  really 
good,  it  was  necessary  to  say  who  are  not  really  good, 
for  instance,  those  who  merely  say  good  words  or  who 
look  pious. 

Another  branch  of  Contrast  would  be  what  may  be 
called  Parallelism.  It  will  be  seen  very  well  in  the 
same  passage  (p.  215),  where  the  house  on  the  rock  is 
Contrasted  with  the  house  on  the  sand ;  the  perfect 
balance  between  the  two  descriptions  cannot  fail  to 
give  us  a  kind  of  pleasure,  which  can  only  be  realised 
if  we  alter  the  description  of  the  second  house  so  that 
it  shall  no  longer  correspond.  This  might  be  done  by 
taking  for  this  the  version  on  p.  214  ;  and  the  sense  of 
discomfort  produced  by  the  change  of  words  would  be 
very  considerable. 

I  need  not  say  very  much  here  about  the  different 
Uses  of   Contrasts,  because   what    I   have  said,   about 


CONTRASTS  293 

Comparisons  will  apply  almost  throughout.  I  shall 
simply  repeat  here  that  Contrasts,  like  Comparisons, 
are  useful  for  many  purposes.  The  reader  should  work 
these  out,  with  his  own  instances. 

(i)  Clearness ; 

(2)  Interest  given  to  the  subject  in  hand  ; 

(3)  the  helping  of  the  Memory  ; 

(4)  the   helping   of  the    Reason    and    the   power   of 

drawing  Inferences  ; 

(5)  Repetition  (which  should  not  seem  to  be  Repe- 

tition, see  p.  216); 

(6)  Emphasis  ; 

(7)  Variety  (not  so  much  in  the  Idea  as  in  the  way 

in  which  one  looks  at  it) ; 

(8)  Humour ; 

(9)  Originalit3^  and  Observation  ; 

(10)  the  use  of  wide  learning  and  study  (see  p.  286): 

masses  of  information,  which  might  other- 
wise be  unused,  become  valuable  ; 

(11)  the    Connexion    betw^een    various    Sciences   and 

other  subjects  (p.  285) ; 

(12)  the  fresh  interest  given  to  every  subject,  and  to 

daily  life ; 

(13)  (to    a    less     extent     than     with     Comparisons), 

SynipatJiy  ; 

(14)  the  suggestion  of   many  new  points; 

(15)  Evidences. 

A  word  may  be  said  about  this  last  point.  We  have 
seen  (p.  149)  that  one  special  branch  of  Evidence  is 
called  the  Evidence  of  Omissions.  Supposing  some- 
one is  looking  at  a  Testimonial  and  he  finds  that  in 
that  Testimonial  the  person  is  said  to  have  certain 
merits,   but   that  one   or  two  of    the   merits    which   he 


294  ^OW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:   STYLE 

requires  are  not  present ;  he  begins  to  feel  (that  is  to 
say,  if  he  is  used  to  dealing  with  Testimonials)  that 
these  merits  may  be  wanting  in  the  person  ;  for  he 
says  to  himself,  '  If  they  had  been  present,  they  would 
have  been  mentioned.'  But  he  does  not  decide  im- 
mediately :  if  he  can,  he  gets  other  Testimonials  and 
sees  whether  the  same  omissions  occur  in  them.  If 
a  Testimonial  of  someone,  who  wishes  to  be  a  school- 
master, omits  some  important  characteristics  of  a  good 
schoolmaster,  and  if  all  the  Testimonials  without  ex- 
ception omit  this  same  characteristic,  the  Evidence  is 
almost  conclusive.  At  any  rate,  even  if  the  Contrast 
does  not  prove  an}-thing,  it  may  suggest  a  great  deal 
which  may  be  worth  following  out. 

In  History- topics  especially,  where  the  Evidence  is 
often  very  meagre,  we  have  to  work  a  great  deal  by 
means  of  Contrasts  and  Opposites.  If  we  wish  to 
judge  of  the  effect  of  a  certain  Drug,  we  cannot  judge 
properly  simply  by  administering  the  Drug  and  noting 
what  takes  place  afterwards.  A  patient  has  fever,  and 
takes  a  Drug,  and,  after  a  week,  the  fever  disappears. 
Now  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  the  Drug  that  has 
removed  the  fever ;  for  someone  might  say  that  the 
fever  would  have  been  removed  without  the  Drug : 
perhaps  he  might  say  that  the  fever  would  have  been 
removed  quicker  without  the  Drug.  To  judge  of  the 
real  effect  of  the  Drug  one  would  have  to  take  two 
very  similar  cases.  In  the  first  case  one  would  let  the 
fever  continue  without  the  Drug,  and  one  would  note 
what  happened  ;  in  the  second  case  one  would  administer 
the  Drug,  and  also  note  what  happened.  If  the  cases 
were  really  similar,  then  the  Contrast  between  the  tvv^o 
would  be  Evidence.     And  so  it  is  with  History :    if  we 


CONTRASTS  295 

wish  to  work  out  what  the  effect  of  some  King  of 
Spain  was  upon  Spain,  we  had  best  work  out  this 
not  merely  by  reading  what  the  Authorities  tell  us, 
but  also  by  looking  at  the  state  of  Spain  before  and 
after  this  King  had  ruled  it. 

Contrasts,  in  fact,  will  suggest  new  features  and  will 
sometimes  be  actual  Evidence. 

But,  as  with  Comparisons,  so  with  Contrasts,  we 
cannot  say  that  all  the  above  results  will  hold  good  unless 
the  Contrasts  are  used  properly.  For  instance,  to  use 
Contrasts  for  every  Idea  throughout  the  Essay  would 
be  monotonous,  and  inappropriate,  and  would  also 
offend  against  the  Law  of  Proportion  :  for  it  would 
make  all  the  Ideas  of  equal  importance.  We  must  re- 
serve the  Contrasts  for  special  occasions.  In  using 
Contrasts,  no  less  than  in  using  Comparisons,  there  is 
a  certain  self-restraint  necessary. 

Exercises  are  ready  to  hand  everywhere :  any  state- 
ment can  be  taken,  and  the  opposite  or  opposites  to  it 
can  be  worked  out.  Abstract  terms  can  also  be  taken, 
such  as  Jionoiir.  We  cannot  really  define  the  word 
honour  until  we  know  exactly  what  the  context  is, 
and  even  then  the  best  way  will  often  be  to  say  that 
of  which  honour  is  the  Opposite,  e.g.  obscurity,  or  dis- 
grace, or  shame. 

There  is  hardly  any  Speech  or  Essay-subject  which 
does  not  demand  the  use  of  Contrasts  and  the  study 
of  Contrasts  as  a  special  Exercise.  In  fact,  if  I  were 
asked  to  say  which  departments  of  Speaking  and  Essa}-- 
Writing  had  the  greatest  educational  value,  I  should 
certainly  mention  Comparisons  and  Contrasts,  when 
worked  out  as  separate  Exercises,  as  among  the  three 
best. 


CHAPTER  LIV.    QUESTIONS. 


There  are  probably  very  few  who  realise  what  is  the 
nature  of  an  ordinary  Question.  It  is  a  kind  of  subject 
without  a  predicate:  for  instance,  if  I  say  'Where  is 
Jones?',  it  is  not  a  complete  Sentence,  but  only  the 
beginning   of  a  Sentence :    I    might   just    as    well    say 

'Jones  is  ':   the   Sentence  will   not   be  complete 

until  the  answer  has  been  given,   e.g.  ' in   town'. 

And  this  can  be  proved  by  the  raising  of  the  voice 
during  a  Question :  we  know  that  in  an  ordinary 
Sentence  the  note  on  which  we  speak  goes  lower  and 
lower :  we  begin  on  a  high  note  and  finish  on  a  lower 
note,  and  the  Sentence  itself  does  not  seem  to  be  done 
until  this  lower  note  has  been  reached.  A  Question,  on 
the  other  hand,  does  not  reach  this  lower  note,  that 
is  to  say,  it  is  like  an  unfinished  tune :  the  answer 
will  finish  off  the  tune  by  ending  on  the  lower  note.* 
This  only  applies  to  the  ordinary  Question.  For  there 
are  other  Questions  which  are  really  Statem.ents  or 
Denials,  or  have  other  meanings  :  for  instance;  "  Is  it 
not  so?"  can  be  nearly  equivalent  to  "  It  is  so",  and  "  Is 
it  so?  "  can  be  nearly  equivalent  to  "  It  is  not  so  ". 

But  here  I  shall  speak  chiefly  of  those  Questions 
which  are  of  the  nature  of  true  Questions,  especially 
those  that  ask  for  information. 

The   great   advantage  of  a  Question   is  that   //  may 

•  See  "How  to  Learn  Philology"  (Sonnenschein),  p.  f92. 
296 


QUESTIONS  297 

encourage  the  reader  or  hearer  to  think  for  himself,  and 
prepare  the  ground  for  tvhat  is  coming.  There  are  certain 
Questions,  also,  which  are  much  better  than  Statements, 
because  they  practically  force  the  reader  or  hearer  to 
admit  a  point  before  one  proceeds  to  base  some  argu- 
ment upon  this  point :  a  good  instance  will  be  found 
on  p.  292. 

Questions  are  also  useful  for  the  purpose  of  excluding 
views  which  are  wrong :  a  stock  instance  would  be 
"What  went  ye  out  for  to  see?"  there  comes  a  list 
of  Questions  which  '  expect ',  or  rather  practically 
contain,  the  answer  '  No '. 

A  Question  may  serve  as  a  mark  of  Emphasis:  it 
calls  attention  to  a  particular  point  as  deserving  special 
attention.  It  may  serve  to  Emphasise  what  follows 
\-ery  much  as  a  pause  might.  Being  thus  a  mark  of 
Emphasis,  it  should  not  be  misused :  it  should  not  be 
employed  where  no  Emphasis  is  wanted. 

Open-air  preachers  are  very  fond  of  perpetually  asking 
Questions  of  their  audience,  trying  to  keep  the  attention 
of  their  audience  thus:  but  then,  when  the  answer 
comes,  the  point  is  often  found  to  be  quite  unimportant. 
This  Question-asking  becomes  a  bad  habit;  these 
preachers  avoid  saying  anything  directly,  and  always 
lead  up  to  it  b\'  a  Question  :  the  result  is  that,  when 
they  have  something  which  they  really  ought  to 
Emphasise,  one  of  their  great  means  of  Emphasis  has 
lost  its  capacity. 

Lastly,  Questions  introduce  a  certain  amount  of 
Vajietf,  and  occasionally  they  form  a  kind  of  rest:  a 
series  of  Statements  is  apt  to  be  somewhat  wearying. 

But  Questions  themselves  can  be  wearying  also,  and 
can  be  singularly  unnatural  and  'didactic'.     Thus  the 


298  HOW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

Stock  Question  'Who  blew  what  how  many  times  round 
the  walls  of  where  ? '  is  almost  as  great  a  misuse  of  the 
art  of  Questioning  as  the  words  of  the  little  prig,  in  the 
old-fashioned  "  Teacher's  Guide  "  :  'Oh  mamma  dear,  is 
it  true  that  in  the  year  63  B.C.  Marcus  Tullius  Cicero 
was  Consul  and  spoke  against  the  arch-Anarchist 
Catiline  ? '  The  Answer  of  Mamma  is  '  Yes,  my  dear ' ; 
it  should  have  been  something  else. 


CHAPTER    LV.      OTHER   EHETORICAL  DEVICES. 


For  Rhetorical  Devices  I  must  refer  to  special  Books 
on  Rhetoric  (e.g.  Bain's) ;  though  anyone  who  really 
'  feels '  his  Ideas  is  likely  to  use  the  right  '  Devices '  as 
naturally  as  an  Orator  who  really  'feels'  his  Ideas  is 
likely  to  use  the  right  expression  and  '  gestures '. 

We  cannot  tell  how  far  the  greatest  Orators  intro- 
duced these  'artifices'  consciously  or  instinctively  :  but, 
supposing  that  you  do  not  use  them  instinctively,  then 
it  may  be  as  well  to  study  their  use  and  to  practise 
their  use.  Demosthenes,  Cicero,  Burke,  and  Macaulay, 
might  be  among  the  Text-books. 

The  means  are  not  to  be  employed  haphazard  :  to 
use  them  for  a  quiet  narrative  would  be  a  mistake,  an 
offence  against  Appropriateness  (p.  243).  At  first,  i.e. 
until  the  use  or  non-use  becomes  half-automatic,  you 
will  have  to  be  constantly  asking  yourself,  '  Is  this 
means  necessary  or  useful  just  here?' 

To  distract  the  attention  and  emotions  by  '  Figures 
of  Speech ',  as  it  were  by  vivid  colouring  or  minute 
accuracy  of  detail,  to  the  wrong  things  or  to  minor 
points,  is  a  thing  to  be  sedulously  avoided.  To  lash 
oneself  into  '  Declamation  '  over  mere  trifles,  as  some 
Satirists  have  done,  belongs  more  to  the  province  of 
Comedy  and  Tragedy.  The  '  habit '  of  Declamation 
and  Ranting  is  to  be  kept  under. 

299 


3CO  HOW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STVLB 

Among  Rhetorical  Devices  might  be  classed 

Questions  (p.  296), 
Repetitions  (p.  216), 
Contrasts  (p.  291), 
Comparisons  (p.  281). 

Many  names  are  given  to  the  Devices,  such  as  the 
name  of  'Similes',  'Metaphors',  and  'Tropes'  to  the 
different  kinds  of  Comparisons. 

Balance,  Parallelism,  and  Antithesis  are  very  common 
Devices.  We  saw  an  instance  of  Balance  on  p.  215, 
where  the  '  house  on  rock '  balanced  the  '  house  on 
sand '  by  way  of  Contrast.  The  Psalms  are  full  of 
Parallelisms  also,  the  sense  of  the  first  half  often  being 
equivalent  to  the  sense  of  the  second  half 

'  Who  will  lead  me  into  the  strong  city :  and  who  will 

bring  me  into  Zion  ?  ' 
'  Hast  not  thou  forsaken   us,  O  God  :   and  wilt  not 

thou,  O  God,  go  forth  with  our  hosts  ? ' 

Indeed,  this  was  an  early  feature  of  'Poetry'.  Here 
the  correspondence  is  one  of  sense,  or  of  mere  words. 
Thucydides  and  Tacitus  were  very  fond  of  using  words 
which  seem  to  be  Contrasts,  and  to  balance  one  another, 
but  which  really  did  not  do  so. 

'  Balance '  of  Sound  of  course  often  appears  in  Metre, 
and  in  Rhyme,  and  in  actual  Music.  The  sense  of 
Balance  and  Correspondence  leads  us  to  expect  and 
wait  for  certain  sounds.    The  Balance  gives  satisfaction. 

'Contrast'  in  Sounds  is  a  point  well  worth  study. 
We  shall  soon  speak  of  'Alliteration'  (p.  304),  but  it 
probably  has  its  opposite,  in  Sounds  that  are  not  in 
the  least  like  one  another. 

Besides  the  Balance  or  Contrast  of  Sense,  of  Words, 


OTHER  RIIF.TORICAL    DEVICES  301 

of  Rhythm,  and  of  Sounds,  we  may  notice  Exaggeration 
(or  Hyperbole).  It  abounds  in  Proverbs,  and  in  the 
New  Testament,  and  indeed  among  Southern  and 
Eastern  Nations*  generally.     See  p.  160. 

The  Epigram  ('  his  success  was  built  up  on  the 
most  solid  foundations,  that  is,  on  failures ')  is  frequently 
in  the  nature  of  an  Exaggeration. 

^Interjections '  are  another  Rhetorical  weapon.  Carlyle 
should  be  studied  here,  as  also  for  his  apostrophising 
(e.g.  '  O  happy  king,  whom  ...'). 

Unnatural  and  striking  phrases,  orders  of  words,  etc., 
were  another  feature  of  Carlyle's  Rhetoric. 

He  also  used  Hnnionr,  generally  a  severe  kind  of 
Humour.  Humour  is  to  be  classed  as  a  Rhetorical 
weapon,  and  indeed  as  one  of  the  most  powerful. 

Bain  gives  a  good  List  of  Devices  in  his  "  Rhetoric  and  Compo- 
sition ''.     He  mentions,  for  example, 

Irony,  or  saying  "  the  contrary  of  what  is  meant "  (e.g. '  You  are 
cle\'cr  ! ') ; 

Inmccndo,  or  "implying  instead  of  stating  plainly";   but  this 
cannot  be  altogether  distinguished  from  the  understating  of  the 
truth,  (which  is  called  Mciosis  or  Litotes),  as  e.g.  in  the  slang 
expressions  'just  a  little',  and  'rather',  meaning  'very  much  so'. 
'  His  honour  rooted  in  dishonour  grew, 
and  faith  unfaithful  kept  him  falsely  true', 
would  be  an  example  of  verbal  Paradox  or  Oxymoron. 

Climax,  i.e.  the  leading  up  to  the  strongest  point,  is  familiar  to 
everyone  (e.g.  '  That  deed  was  great,  heroic,  godly'). 

Its  opposite,  Anii-Clhnax  or  Bathos,  is  useful  especially  when 
one  wishes  to  throw  scorn  or  ridicule  upon  a  person  or  an  idea, 
as  in  'he  marched,  with  his  armed  legions,  with  the  troops  whose 
ancestors  had  won  the  world,  against  the  fierce  Barbarians  who 
had  defied  his  power :  at  length  he  came  within  reach  of  the 
enemy,  and  began  his  work  in  earnest.  Single-handed  he  carried 
it  out,  and  returned  to  celebrate  his  triumph  in  the  great  Capital. 

*  .See  "  Tiie  Teaching  of  Jesus  To-day  "'  (Grant  Richards). 


302  HOJV  TO   EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

Yes,  he  had  done  well,  and  with  him  alone  rested  the  glory— <y 
having  picked  lip  a  few  shells  up07t  the  seashore  ! 
Among  Rhetorical  Figures  may  also  be  classed  such  phrases  as : — 

'  he  is  a  Croesus ' ; 
•    '  he  lets  (he  bnite  get  uppermost  in  him,  and  lets  the  angel 
fall'; 
'  let  not  ambition  mock  their  useful  toil '  j 
'  Phyllis  is  my  orAy  joy'' j 
'  I  hate  red  tape ' ; 
'  a  7-estless  pillow '. 

See  further  Bain's  "Rhetoric,  etc.",  from  which  some  of  the  above 
instances  are  taken. 


CHAPTER  LVI.     RHYTHM. 


Rhythm,  in  its  wider  sense,  includes  something  more 
than  mere  sound  :  for  instance,  there  is  a  certain  balance 
of  sense  as  well  as  a  balance  of  sound.  It  is  often  quite 
as  important  that  the  sense  should  correspond  as  that 
the  sound  should  correspond.  We  have  seen  an  instance 
on  page  215,  where  the  house  on  rock  'balanced'  the 
house  on  sand. 

But  undoubtedly  the  Music  and  Rhythm  of  sound 
alone,  in  Essaying-writing  and  Speaking,  are  quite  a 
power  in  themselves.  We  could  scarcely  realise  what 
the  oratory  of  Gladstone  or  Canon  Farrar  would  be 
without  its  Rhythm.  We  may  well  doubt  if  it  would 
then  hold  its  hearers  or  carry  them  along.  A  (Con- 
servative) Member  of  Parliament  once  said  that  he  did 
not  like  listening  to  Gladstone's  Speeches  because  they 
so  often  carried  him  away  and  *  convinced  '  him  without 
giving  him  any  idea  as  to  any  particular  meaning.  He 
said  that,  even  as  he  read  the  Speeches  in  a  paper,  a 
similar  effect  was  still  perceptible.  Had  he  analj'sed 
them,  and  considered  the  Ideas  as  Ideas,  I  doubt  if  the 
effect  would  have  been  anything  like  this. 

One  of  the  secrets  of  Rh}'thm  is  Variety.  This  does 
not  mean  so  much  that  the  Rh}-thm  should  differ  in  an 
unscientific  way,  merely  for  the  sake  of  difference,  but 
that  each  particular  Rhythm  should  be  appropriate  to 
its  subject.     In  Poetry  there  was  no  poet  who  could  use 

303 


304  HO IV  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

his  Rhythm  so  well  as  Vergil.  The  mere  sound  of  some 
lines  has  been  known  to  convey  the  general  meaning 
even  to  those  who  understood  no  Latin  at  all.  This  is 
really  a  very  great  test.  In  Prose,  perhaps  De  Quincey 
has  come  as  near  to  this  effect  as  anyone  else,  and  there 
is  no  doubt  that  Prose  has  its  metres  as  well  as  Poetry. 
Of  course  Prose  has  nothing  quite  so  fixed  as,  for  in- 
stance, the  Latin  Hexameter  metre,  but  yet  there  is  a 
certain  metre  or  Rhythm  demanded  for  certain  passages 
and  certain  positions  in  the  Paragraph  or  a  Sentence : 
Cicero's  esse  vidcatur  was  decidedly  a  good  finish  up  to 
a  sentence. 

The  ancient  Writers  and  Orators  among  the  Greeks, 
and  among  the  Romans  in  their  train,  paid  far  more 
attention  to  the  Rhythm  than  we  do.  Especially  did 
they  avoid  harshness  and  jingle,  although  they  were  not 
averse  to  Alliteration. 

Alliteration  has  a  great  deal  of  effect  on  Rhythm: 
how  much  effect  we  seldom  realise,  because  Alliteration 
is  not  always  obvious  on  the  surface.  Professor  Barrett 
Wendell  gives  the  following  quotation,  "  Quietly  rested 
beneath  the  drums  and  tramplings  of  three  conquests  ". 
Here  the  casual  reader  may  not  notice  the  perfect 
Alliteration,  forgetting  that  /  and  th  and  d  are  all  letters 
of  the  same  class,  namely  Dentals,  and  that  r  occurs 
once  or  twice,  and  so  helps  the  Alliteration. 

The  letters/,  b,  in,  (f),  v,  all  are  Labials ;  t,  d,  n,  and 
th  are  Dentals  ;  k,  c,  qu,  g,  ng,  and  to  some  extent  w  are 
Gutturals ;  and  r  and  /  are  Liquids.*  It  will  thus  be 
.seen  that  Alliteration  is  something  subtler  than  the 
mere  putting  together  of  a  number  of  words  which 
begin   with   the  same    letter,  as   in    combinations   like 

*  See  "  liow  to  learn  rhilology"  (Sonncnschein). 


nH  VTIIM  305 

'Little  Liver  Pills',  'Rhyme  and  Reason',  '  Dead- 
wood  Dick's  Big  Bonanza'. 

A  still  subtler  form  of  Alliteration,  and  one  little 
studied,  is  that  between  Vowels  and  Consonants,  For 
Vowels  also  can  be  classed  as  Gutturals,  etc.*  A 
special  branch  of  Alliteration  would  be  the  Rhyme ; 
and  Onomatopoeia  may  be  mentioned  also. 

As  to  general  principles,  it  may  be  noticed  that  a 
quick  Rhythm  is  suitable  for  a  quick  narrative,  espe- 
cially for  exciting  scenes,  and  for  impassioned  oratory, 
whereas  the  slower  Rhythm  may  be  better  for  a  quiet 
narrative,  and  for  calm  and  logical  reasoning.  Short- 
ness, again  (the  Words  or  the  Sentence  or  both  of  them 
being  short),  will  be  suited  for  quick  narrative  and  im- 
passioned argument. 

Of  course  Rhythm  can  also  give  the  effect  of  sus- 
pense, and  the  effect  of  majesty. 

Striking  Ideas,  again,  can  be  expressed  by  a  striking 
and  unusual  Rhythm. 

Closely  connected  with  Rhythm  is  not  only  the 
length  of  the  words,  but  also  their  origin.  The  choice 
between  a  Latin  word  and  an  Anglo- Saxo7i  n'ord  will 
often  make  a  considerable  difference  to  the  Rhythm, 
and  the  effect  on  the  shortness  or  length  of  Sentences 
is  considerable.  Notice  also  how  a  long  word  at  the 
end  of  a  Sentence  or  Paragraph  (p.  262)  will  do  much  to 
prevent  'tameness'.  The  choice  between  many  single 
clauses  and  single  complicated  Paragraphs  is  intimatcl)' 
connected  with  the  Rhythm  also. 

And  so  is  Punctuation,  though  Punctuation  and 
Rhythm  are  seldom  mentioned  together.  A  badly 
punctuated    passage    rarely    reads   well  :    the    unsatis- 

*  See  "  How  to  Learn  Philology"  (Sonnenschein),  p.  204. 
X 


3o6  HOW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

factory  feeling  which  it  produces  cannot  be  overcome 
by  the  otherwise  excellent  swing. 

As  to  Practice,  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  New 
Testament  in  the  Authorised  Version,  will  always  be 
models  for  Rhythm;  and  almost  by  their  side  will 
stand  the  Translations  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  by 
Butcher  and  Lang,  and  by  Leaf,  Lang,  and  Myers. 
The  New  Testament  should  be  analysed,  and  the 
secrets  of  its  Rhythm  should  be  discovered,  especial 
attention  being  paid  to  the  length  of  the  words,  to  the 
length  of  the  Sentences,  the  absence  of  harshness,  and 
the  occasional  (and  often  veiled)  Alliteration.  Not  only 
should  the  passages  be  copied  out,  but  they  should  also 
be  read  out  loud.  I  believe  that  a  PJionograpJi  would  be 
a  very  valuable  help,  and  before  long  we  shall  see  it 
introduced  into  Education. 

A  word  of  warning  is  necessary  here.  The  ancients 
studied  Rhythm  so  carefully  that  they  often  took  little 
pains  to  study  the  sense.  The  Athenians  and  the 
Romans  listened  for  the  sound  and  expected  it  to 
affect  them  in  certain  pleasing  ways,  as  music  will  do, 
and,  entranced  by  this  pleasing  feeling  which  it  pro- 
duced, and  by  the  emotion  which  it  aroused,  they  too 
often  failed  to  demand  good  sense  or  even  truth :  they 
sacrificed  the  Ideas  to  the  Expression.  And  this  is 
what  many  Writers  have  done  again  and  again  after 
their  time,  and  many  Speakers.  The  criticism  passed 
on  thousands  of  Writers  and  Speakers  must  be:  "Their 
Style  is  beautiful,  but  their  Ideas  are  meaningless  or 
execrable,  and  so  is  the  Arrangement  of  their  Ideas". 

Yet,  in  spite  of  its  misuse,  Rhythm  is  a  factor  that 
must  not  be  neglected  in  Writing  and  Speaking.  Often, 
even  when  we  read  to  ourselves,  we  cannot  possibly  fail 
to  notice  the  Rhythm  ;  it  is  bound  to  affect  us. 


RHYTHM  307 

And  so,  in  revising  the  Composition,  we  should 
(see  p.  330)  give  one  special  revision  to  the  Rhythm  : 
we  should  read  the  Composition  out  loud  so  that  we 
may  study  and  criticise  that  alone.  And  particular 
attention  should  be  paid  to  the  Rhythm  at  the  end  of 
every  Paragraph  and  at  the  very  end  of  the  whole  Com- 
position, where,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  as  a  rule  bad  to 
end  with  a  few  short  words,  and  better  to  end  with 
longer  words,  forming  a  Rhythm  marked  by  dignity, 
smoothness,  and  tranquillity.  With  rare  exceptions,  it 
is  wrong  to  end  ujd  with  a  quick  sharp  jerk  like  this. 


CHAPTER  LVII.    CHAPTERS. 


The  Chapter  of  a  Book  may  be  compared  with  an 
Essay :  Hke  the  Essay,  it  has  Paragraphs,  Sentences, 
Clauses,  and  Words. 

But  there  is  a  difference :  for  the  Essay  may  be  com- 
plete in  itself,  even  if  it  suggests  problems  for  research ; 
whereas  the  Chapter  is  only  a  part,  and,  however  im- 
portant a  part  it  may  be,  and  however  complete  it  may 
seem,  it  should  stand  in  a  certain  relation  to  the  other 
Chapters  or  parts.  If  I  may  use  a  Comparison,  the 
Essay  is  like  the  player  of  a  Single  at  Lawn-Tennis : 
he  plays  for  himself  and  by  himself.  The  Chapter  is 
like  one  of  a  Football  team  :  he  should  play  as  well  as 
he  can  so  far  as  his  own  part  is  concerned,  but  he 
should  play  with  reference  to  the  other  members  of, 
e.g.,  the  Fifteen :  he  should  help  them  and  in  turn 
expect  their  help.  If  he  is  a  Half-Back,  he  should 
often  '  feed '  the  Three-Quarters,  but  should  expect  the 
Forwards  to  help  him  to  get  the  ball. 

On  the  one  hand,  then,  the  Chapter  should  be  per- 
fect, and  should  have  Unity :  it  should  deal  with  a 
special  subject  or  aspect  of  a  subject.  This  might  be 
called  Specialisation.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
Chapter  should  be  connected  with  the  other  Chapters, 
and  should  lead  up  to  their  work,  help  their  work,  and 
supplement  their  work,  expecting  similar  services  in 
return.  This  would  be  called  Scientific  Division  of 
Labour^  or  Co-operation. 

308 


CHAPTERS  309 

The  Chapter,  then,  is  to  the  Book  very  much  what 
the  Paragraph  is  to  the  Chapter,  or  (to  a  smaller  extent) 
what  the  Sentence  is  to  the  Paragraph,  or  (to  a  still 
smaller  extent)  what  the  Word  is  to  the  Sentence. 

For  example,  as  the  lengtli  or  bulk  of  a  Paragraph 
(when  compared  with  the  other  Paragraphs)  should 
greatly  depend  upon  its  importance  (the  word  '  mass ' 
is  aptly  used  by  Prof.  Barrett  Wendell),  so  the  length 
of  a  Chapter  (as  compared  with  the  other  Chapters) 
should  greatly  depend  upon  its  importance  also. 

Again,  as  the  Paragraphs  should  vary  in  length,  so 
should  the  Chapters. 

Once  again,  as  the  Paragraph  should,  as  a  rule,  begin 
with  what  is  Interesting  (e.g.  the  scope  and  subject  of 
the  Paragraph),  or  with  what  will  Connect  it  with  the 
previous  Paragraph,  so  the  Chapter  should,  as  a  rule, 
be  guided  by  a  similar  Law. 

In  fact,  the  various  Principles  which  we  apply  to  the 
Paragraph  should  be  applied  to  the  Chapter  also. 


CHxAPTER   LVIIL     PARAGRAPHS. 


A  Paragraph  is  a  part  or  member  of  an  Essay  or  a 
Chapter  or  a  Speech.  A  Paragraph  is  made  up  of 
Sentences,  and  these  are  made  up  of  Clauses  or  Words. 
Apart  from  the  relations  of  the  Paragraph  to  the  Essay, 
and  of  the  Paragraph  to  the  Sentence,  it  is  very  hard 
to  say  what  the  Paragraph  is  or  should  be,  but  a  good 
general  description  would  be  this.  A  Paragraph  should 
be  capable  of  being  summed  up  in  a  single  Sentence  or 
as  a  single  Idea.  Professor  Wendell's  remarks  are  far 
the  best  that  I  have  ever  read  on  the  subject :  he  shows 
that,  among  the  best  Paragraphs,  are  those  in  which 
the  first  few  words  and  the  last  few  words  will  give 
the  general  Idea  of  the  whole. 

The  first  Paragraph  of  an  Essay  should  be  Interest- 
ing, the  last  Paragraph  should  generally  be  Impressive. 
The  middle  Paragraphs  should  be  connected  with  one 
another,  that  is  to  say,  as  a  general  rule,  each  should  be 
a  link  between  the  one  before  and  the  one  after.  This 
does  not  mean  that  the  last  Sentence  of  one  Para- 
graph should  necessarily  be  linked  to  the  first  Sentence 
in  the  next,  and  the  last  Sentence  in  this  to  the  first 
Sentence  in  the  next,  and  so  on  :  for  the  Connexion 
can  come  in  the  middle.  It  is  possible  to  write  an 
Essay  or  make  a  Speech  of  twenty  Paragraphs,  such 
that  each  Paragraph  shall  have  an  Interesting  Be- 
ginning and  an  Impressive  Ending,  and  the  Connexion 

310 


PARAGRAPHS  3" 

between  each  Paragraph  and  the  next  shall  come  in 
the  middle  of  the  Paragraph  :  in  other  words,  as  we 
read  a  fresh  Paragraph  we  shall  be  Interested  in  its 
Beginning,  but  perhaps  we  shall  not  see  its  Connexion 
with  what  has  been  said  before  until  we  come  near  to 
the  middle  of  it. 

But  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  arrange  a  whole  Essay 
or  Speech  on  this  plan  :  here  as  elsewhere  there  must 
be  Variety.  Sometimes  the  Beginning  should  be 
Interesting  (see  p.  258),  sometimes  the  Ending  should 
be  Impressive ;  but  at  other  times  the  Ending  of  one 
Paragraph  and  the  Beginning  of  the  next  need  not  be 
impressive  and  interesting,  but  may  merely  be  (see 
p.  263)  linked  together  in  some  way  or  another. 

Each  Beginning  should,  as  far  as  is  possible,  arouse 
the  attention,  but  there  should  also  be  as  much  Variety 
as  is  feasible ;  the  Ending  should  never  be  tame,  and  it 
should  never  be  of  such  a  kind  that  you  can  cut  it  off 
without  losing  anything  from  the  sense.  Frequently 
it  is  true  that,  the  greater  the  Climax,  the  better  the 
Paragraph.  The  Latins  were  particularly  careful  to 
avoid  Endings  of  a  tame  or  unnecessary  kind :  they 
often  kept  their  Verb  till  the  end  of  a  Sentence,  so 
that,  until  the  last  word  had  been  spoken,  you  could 
not  say  that  the  sense  was  really  finished.  Nevertheless 
they  broke  through  this  rule  for  the  sake  of  Clearness, 
Emphasis,  Interest,  Variety,  or  even  Connexion. 

Not  only  should  there  be  Variety  in  the  Beginnings 
and  Endings,  but  the  length  should  be  varied  also:  some 
Paragraphs  should  be  longer  and  others  shorter  (p.  247). 
Much  will  depend  upon  the  importance  oi  the  Idea  which 
lies  inside  the  Paragraph.  If  it  is  very  important,  then 
the  Paragraph  should  as  a  rule  be  long :  among  other 


312  I/O IV  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

reasons,  it  may  have  to  contain  Repetition,  Comparisons, 
and  Contrasts :  this  in  itself  will  make  the  Paragraph 
longer.  Nevertheless,  a  Paragraph  of  a  very  short 
kind  is  often  even  more  impressive  than  a  very  long 
Paragraph.  One  of  the  most  impressive  in  the  whole 
of  literature  is  a  Paragraph  or  Sentence  of  two  words, 
'•Jesus  wept".  On  the  average,  and  for  ordinary 
purposes,  short  Paragraphs  are  better  than  long. 

We  said  at  the  beginning  that  the  Paragraph  should 
often  admit  of  being  summed  up  in  a  single  Sentence, 
or  as  a  single  Idea:  so  that,  besides  the  Beginning  the 
Ending  and  the  length,  which  must  secure  Interest, 
(often)  Impressiveness,  Connexion,  and  Variety,  four 
great  principles  of  Composition,  we  have  to  consider  the 
fifth  principle,  namely.  Unity.  Anything  which  throws 
light  on  that  Idea  (e.g.  the  details  on  p.  212)  will  not 
violate  the  Law  of  Unity ;  whereas  anything  which 
goes  apart  from  that  Idea  and  outside  it  but  does  not 
throw  light  upon  it,  nor  yet  serve  as  a  Connecting 
link  between  that  Idea  and  another,  will  violate  the 
Law  of  Unity.  It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  the  principle 
really  is  to  some  extent  Economy:  we  must  cut  off 
whatever  is  unnecessary,  that  is  to  say  unnecessary  and 
inappropriate  to  the  Idea  of  the  Paragraph. 

For  the  use  of  the  Resumee,  in  case  we  are  forced  to 
digress,  see  p.  266. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  principles  with  regard  to 
Paragraphs :  for  further  details  the  Reader  is  referred 
to  Barrett  Wendell's  book  on  English  Composition, 
which  will  supplement  what  I  say  here. 

As  to  the  writing-out  of  Paragraphs,  it  is  a  good 
rule,  especially  if  they  are  to  be  Type-written  or  printed 
afterwards,  to  write  out  each  on  a  separate  piece  of 


PARAGRAPHS  313 

paper,  at  any  rate  for  the  rough  copy.  A  friend  of  mine, 
who  has  done  a  good  deal  of  Writing,  told  me  that  he 
had  to  write  the  first  three  pages  of  one  of  his  Essays 
over  and  over  again  (I  forget  how  many  times) ;  and 
this  must  be  a  very  common  experience.  He  said  that, 
after  much  experience,  he  had  taken  to  using  scissors 
and  paste  and  cutting  out  that  which  he  did  not  wish  to 
alter.  Obviously  he  had  made  two  faults :  first,  he 
had  not  prepared  his  Essay,  or  at  least  he  had  not 
prepared  it  on  a  good  plan  (e.g.  by  the  "  Card-System"), 
and  secondly  he  did  not  know  of  the  value  of  writing 
out  each  Paragraph  on  a  separate  piece  of  paper.  Yet 
the  value  is  obvious. 

When  you  have  three  Paragraphs  on  a  single  sheet  of 
paper,  if  you  have  to  re-write  the  second  one,  this  would 
naturally  entail  the  re-writing  of  the  first  and  the  third 
as  well,  if  my  principle  were  not  adopted.  A  Publisher 
once  told  me  that  it  would  be  misleading  for  the 
Printers ;  but  this  is  quite  wrong,  as  I  know  from 
experience,  if  you  give  them  clear  instructions  to  the 
contrary ;  for,  as  we  shall  see  on  page  378,  before  any- 
thing is  sent  to  be  Type-written  or  printed,  instructions 
should  be  given  which  are  to  apply  to  the  whole  of 
the  Composition  ;  and  it  was  a  great  error  to  suppose 
that  Printers  like  to  have  a  large  page  full  of  writing : 
in  fact  once,  when  printers  were  doing  some  things  for 
me  in  a  hurry,  they  actually  cut  up  my  manuscript 
almost  into  shreds. 

Two  more  words  may  be  said  here. 

Each  Paragraph  should  begin  a  little  inland,  a  little 
to  the  right  of  the  left-hand  side  of  the  page,  so  that 
the  reader  may  easily  see  where  the  fresh  Paragraph 
begins  ;  this  is  called  Indentation  and  is  most  important: 


314  1^0  W  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:   STYLE 

many  books  have  so  slight  an  Indentation  that  they 
look  almost  as  if  each  Chapter  were  one  single  Para- 
graph. 

On  page  362  I  said  that  an  Analysis  might  be  given 
in  the  margin  of  a  Book  or  Essay,  or  else  a  Scheme 
might  be  kept  quite  separate :  perhaps  the  best  way 
would  not  only  be  to  do  the  Scheme  before  you  do  the: 
Essay,  and  perhaps  to  give  it  up  with  the  Essay,  but 
to  do  the  Analysis  in  the  margin  after  you  have  done 
the  Essay,  so  that  you  may  not  only  see  where  you 
violated  the  Law  of  Unity  (p.  250),  but  may  also  show 
the  reader  the  contents  of  each  Paragraph,  in  case  he 
wishes  to  look  back  and  read  any  part  over  again. 

As  practice  for  improving  Paragraphs  in  various 
ways,  it  might  be  as  well  to  study  those  of  the  best 
Reviews,  such  as  the  "Nineteenth  Century"  or  the 
"North  American  Review",  and  to  Analyse  the  Para- 
graphs, making  notes  of  their  Beginnings,  their  Endings, 
their  Length,  their  Unity,  and  their  Variety.  Occasion- 
ally you  might  write  a  short  Paragraph  or  two,  for 
instance  to  local  Papers,  if  you  can  find  anything  that 
they  are  likely  to  put  in. 


CHAPTER   LIX.     SENTENCES. 


The  units  in  a  Sentence  are  Clauses  and  Words.  Of 
course  Sentences  vary  very  greatly  from  one  another: 
one  may  have  a  single  Clause,  another  may  have  two 
Clauses  side  by  side,  joined  together  by  some  word  like 
*  and  '  or  '  but ',  and  another  may  have  a  Period  made  up 
of  several  Clauses.  For  instance  "  he  went "  would  be 
a  single  Clause ;  '  he  went  and  saw ',  would  be  two 
Clauses  side  by  side  (or  Co-ordinated);  "he  went  in 
order  that  he  might  see"  would  be  one  Clause  as  a 
Principal  Clause,  to  which  the  other  is  Subordinate  and 
on  which  it  is  Dependent. 

We  have  seen  that  a  Book  is  composed  of  Chapters, 
that  each  Chapter,  which  may  be  something  like  an 
Article  or  Essay,  is  composed  of  Paragraphs,  that  the 
Paragraph  is  composed  of  Sentences,  and  that  the 
Sentences  may  be  composed  of  Clauses,  and  that  the 
Clause  is  composed  of  Words.  We  have  seen  also  that 
for  the  Chapter  and  Paragraph  and  Sentence  and  Clause 
certain  general  principles  hold  good.  Some  of  these 
general  principles  will  be  applied  here  to  a  Sentence. 

First  of  all,  the  Sentence  is  to  some  extent  a  single 
thing  or  Unity,  a  complete  whole,  which  should  admit 
of  being  summed  up  as  a  single  Idea. 

But,  though  it  is  complete  in  itself,  to  some  extent  it 
is  also  helped  by  other  Sentences,  and  it  helps  tlieni  in 
turn.      Just    as    each     person    is    dependent    on    other 

315 


3i6  HOW  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

persons,  and  helps  them,  and  is  helped  by  them,  even 
while  to  some  extent  he  lives  his  own  life,  so  it  is  with 
Sentences.  Each  is  not  merely  an  Individual,  but  also 
a  member  of  a  whole,  of  which  other  Individuals  (his 
'  neighbours ')  are  members  also. 

The  Connexion  between  one  Sentence  and  the  one 
before  it,  and  the  one  after  it,  is  not  wont  to  be  much 
studied  by  itself  Attention  is  so  often  fixed  on  the 
Grammar  and  on  the  Vocabulary  that  little  of  it  is  left 
for  the  order  of  Sentences  and  their  relation  to  one 
another.  But  of  these  relations  we  have  already  spoken 
in  the  Chapter  on  Connexion. 

The  Order  of  Words  in  a  Sentence  is  now  studied  far 
more  carefully  than  it  used  to  be.  The  natural  Order 
(as  in  '  he  goes ')  is  the  Subject  and  then  the  Predicate. 
The  Predicate  may  consist  of  a  Verb,  an  Object,  and 
an  Adverb :  for  instance,  '  he  did  it  well '  illustrates  all 
these.  But  this  is  not  the  only  type  of  Sentence :  some 
Sentences  have  no  Subject  or  no  Predicate  expressed, 
e.g.  Exclamations. 

There  are  many  deviations  from  the  above  order :  thus, 
in  '  this  man  was  Julius  Caesar ',  the  subject  comes  last ; 
sometimes  the  Adverb  or  the  Object  may  come  first. 

The  Order  of  Words  will  depend  partly  on  the  topic, 
partly  on  the  aim  of  the  Writer,  partly  on  the  need  for 
Variety,  and  Interest,  and  partly  on  the  Connexion  of 
the  Sentence  with  other  Sentences,  and  the  Connexion 
of  its  various  parts  with  one  another,  and  partly  on 
Emphasis. 

This  Connexion  of  the  parts  of  a  Sentence  with  one 
another  deserves  special  attention  :  those  parts  which  are 
most  closely  connected  with  one  another  i}i  meaning  should 
be  closely  connected  in  order  also. 


SENTENCES  317 

Professor  IMciklejohn,  in  his  "Art  of  Writing  English" 
(p.  277  foil.),  gives  some  very  useful  Instances  of  bad 
order,  e.g. 

'  Five  pounds  reward  is  offered  for  the  discovery  of 
any  person  injuring  this  property  by  order  of  the  chief 
of  police '. 

'  This  monument  was  erected  to  the  memory  of  John 
Smith,  who  was  shot,  as  a  mark  of  affection  by  his 
brother '. 

I  offer  a  few  other  instances  :  most  Public  Notices 
should  be  carefully  studied  from  this  point  of  view ! 

'  The  Reader  in  Comparative  *  *  ology  will  be  glad 
to  see  any  students  who  think  of  reading  for  Section  E 
of  Part  II.  of  the  Classical  Tripos  at  his  rooms  in 
*  *  *  *  College  between  10  and  11  on  any  of  the 
following  days:  Saturday  June  10,  Saturday  June  17, 
and  Monday  June  19.' 

'The  love  which,  perchance,  follows  some  when  they 
are  dead  to  that  place  where  a  human  testimony  will 
not  be  in  vain.' 

In  the  last  two  passages  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  the 
mistakes  in  the  order  of  words  can  often  be  remedied  by 
Punctuation.  '  The  effect  of  walking  on  the  heart  and 
lungs '  reads  very  badly,  and,  if  the  Construction  is  not 
changed  to  '  the  effects  which  walking  has  on  the  heart 
and  lungs ',  the  words  may  be  punctuated  thus :  '  the 
effect,  of  walking,  on  the  heart  and  lungs':  the  order 
of  words  does  not  here  strike  one  as  being  so  wrong : 
at  any  rate  the  proper  meaning  is  clear.  TJie  very 
severest  test  of  the  right  order  will  be  the  removing  of  all 
stops :  it  is  too  severe  a  test  and  one  which  legal  docu- 
ments and  Latin  will  stand,  but  which  very  few  ordinary 
English  writings  will  stand. 


3i8  I/Oiy  TO  EXCESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

Another  common  fault,  besides  that  of  putting  a 
word  in  its  wrong  place  in  a  Sentence,  is  that  of 
using  the  same  word  in  different  senses :  but  for  this, 
and  others,  I  must  refer  to  such  works  as  Professor 
Meiklejohn's. 

We  have  seen  above  that  the  most  important  parts 
of  a  Sentence  are  the  Beginning  and  the  Ending.  In 
the  Beginning  will  often  come  that  which  will  /ink  the 
Clause  with  the  Clause  which  comes  before.  The 
Ending  should  not  be  tame— often  a  long  word  will 
do  much  to  redeem  the  tameness — but  should  as  a 
rule  give  something  without  which  the  Sentence  is  not 
quite  complete.  As  a  rule  the  reader  should  be  listen- 
ing and  waiting  for  the  Ending,  his  interest  and  attention 
being  kept  up  till  the  Sentence  is  actually  finished. 
Another  common  Ending,  however,  is  one  which  pre- 
pares for  the  next  Sentence,  and  which  is  a  link  between 
the  two  Sentences. 

So  we  see  that,  besides  the  natural  order  of  words,  at 
least  two  principles  are  to  be  considered  : — 

first,  Emphasis,  which  e.g.  may  make  the  Subject  come 
at  the  end,  or  the  Object  at  the  beginning  ; 

secondly,  the  Connexion  of  a  Sentence  with  the 
Sentence  before  and  the  Sentence  after. 

Yet  another  principle  would  be  Economy,  the  cutting 
out  of  what  is  unnecessary  ;  but  of  this  we  have  spoken 
on  p.  239. 

As  to  the  length  of  Sentences,  it  should  vary  very 
considerably,  partly  to  ensure  Variety  and  Change  and 
to  prevent  monotony ;  partly  also  for  the  sake  of  Pro- 
portion, an  important  Sentence  often  being  longer  than 
one  which  is  unimportant;  but,  partly  also  according  to 
the  subject  and  the  '  mood ',  rapid  and  exciting  descrip- 


SEA'TENCFS  3'9 

tions  and  passionate  arguments  requiring  shorter  Sen- 
tences than  quiet  descriptions  and  quiet  arguments. 

A  series  of  '  loose '  Clauses,  following  on  one  another 
without  Conjunctions,  is  best  for  exciting  and  (certain) 
emotional  passages  ;  such  a  series  zvith  Conjunctions 
(e.g.  '  and  ',  '  for  ',  '  but ')  will  be  less  '  excited  ',  but  still 
may  be  good  for  rapidity;  the  compact  Period,  how- 
ever, especially  when  the  climax,  the  main  Clause,  is 
reserved  till  the  end,  and  when  there  are  Subordinate 
Clauses  (like  these  last  two  Clauses)  by  which  the  interest 
and  suspense  are  kept  up,  may  be  better  for  quieter 
narrative  and  quieter  argument.  The  '  suspense '  should 
not  be  overdone :  if  there  is  any  danger  of  this,  sum  up 
the  gist  in  a  few  short  sharp  words  at  the  end. 

There  is  another  point  also  to  be  noted  about  Sen- 
tences, and  that  is  their  Construction.  A  Sentence  may 
be  put  in  many  forms,  such  as  (see  p.  273)  Abstract  and 
Concrete  and  very  Concrete. 

Again  (see  p.  253)  we  may  have  a  Statement,  a  Ques- 
tion, an  Exhortation,  or  an  Exclamation.  The  Writer 
or  Speaker  often  has  to  choose  which  form  he  will  use, 
and  here  again  he  must  be  guided  by  the  subject  he 
is  writing  about,  by  his  aim,  and  by  his  readers  or 
hearers.  In  oratory  he  will  be  far  more  inclined  to 
use  Questions  and  Exclamations  and  Exhortations. 

As  safe  general  rules  about  Sentences,  one  might 
say  '  Keep  them  rather  s/wrt  usually,  but  occasionally 
vary  their  length  and  vary  their  characteristics :  connect 
them  one  with  another ;  and,  while  ending  the  Sentence 
itself,  pay  great  attention  to  the  order  of  the  Words 
and  to  the  length  of  the  Words. 


CHAPTER    LX.     GRAMMAR   OR  SYNTAX. 


It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  Book  to  say  much  about 
Grammar  (Syntax).  But  one  rule  is  worth  bearing  in 
mind  constantly,  and  that  is  :  KEEP  ON  THE  SAFE  SIDE. 

While  you  do  not  sacrifice  Clearness  or  Simplicity, 
avoid  what  would  call  down  the  criticism  of  the  strictest 
critic,  or  even  of  the  grossest  pedant.  If  you  can,  you 
had  better  steer  clear  of  criticism. 

Hundreds  of  critics  get  a  reputation  for  accuracy 
because  they  insist  on  some  '  rule ',  as  they  call  it. 
They  may  be  quite  forgetful  or  ignorant  of  the  fact  that 
the  language  may  be  changing  —  that  what  %vas  a 
'  rule '  fifty  years  ago  is  ceasing  to  or  has  ceased  to 
be  a  'rule'  to-day.  Prof  Barrett  Wendell  justly  calls 
attention  to  the  fact  that  a  great  deal  of  what  was  7iot 
'  Good  Use'  some  time  ago,  is  becoming  or  has  become 
'  Good  Use '  to-day.     Fashions  change. 

Now  among  the  growing  Constructions  of  to-day, 
which  will  probably  grow  over  and  under  and  through 
the  severe  critic's  wall,  several  are  especially  noticeable, 
viz. 

(i)  'He  was  going  to  just  look  inside',  which  is  called 
2.'  Split  hifinitive\  'To'  and  'look',  says  the  critic, 
must  come  together,  and  must  not  be  divided  by  an 
Adverb.  Nevertheless  I  prophesy  that  before  another 
century  has  passed  some  '  Split  Infinitives'  (not  all)  will 
be  as  'regular'  as  'that  he  might  just  look  inside'.    The 

320 


GRAM}rAR   OR  SYNTAX  321 

Analogy  of  this  latter  Construction  is  almost  bounrl  to 
be  at  work.  This  will  be  so  because  masses  of  educated 
people  have  felt  the  Construction  to  be  naiiiral,  and 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  critics  tell  them  it  is  wrong. 
Anyone  who  studies  Historical  Grammar  will  find  our 
language  full  of  such  Analogies.  Thus  '  under  the  cir- 
cumstances', which  sounds  so  familiar  and  so  natural,  was 
once  wrong  :  and  even  now  (p.  207)  the  critics  pounce 
on  it.  But  are  the  critics  to  lay  down  a  law,  admit- 
ting '  under  the  conditions '  but  forbidding  the  Analogical 
Construction  '  under  the  circumstances ',  though  '  circum- 
stances '  no  longer  mean  simply  '  things  that  stand 
around'  (circumstantia)?  We  shall  probably  live  to 
sec  the  millions  push  many  a  Construction  into  '  Good 
Use',  unless  the  critics  exert  their  every  effort  against 
this  perfectly  natural  tendency  to  Analogies. 

(ii)  We  can  say  :  '  Seeing  that  this  is  so,  it  may 
be  said  .  .  .  ',  for  '  seeing  that '  has  become  almost 
equivalent  to  an  indeclinable  'since'.  But  how  often 
we  read  :  '  Knowing  the  truth  of  this,  it  is  obvious  that 
the  following  holds  good '.  The  '  free '  Participle  in 
-ing  is  also  a  growing  Construction.  I  read  in  a  Daily 
Paper  "  My  house  was  struck  a  few  years  ago,  taking 
off  the  roof." 

Now  in  all  these  cases,  where  there  is  a  doubt,  keep 
on  the  safe  side,  and  say :  '  He  was  going  just  to  look 
inside ',  '  Knowing  the  truth  of  this,  we  see  clearl\-  that 
the  following  holds  good ',  '  A  few  years  ago  the 
lightning  struck  my  house,  taking  off  the  roof. 

The  other  ways  are  not  yet  '  Good  Use '.  Till  they 
arc,  avoid  them. 

(iii)  The  commonest  source  of  error  is  what  may 
be  called  Blending  or  Contamination. 

Y 


322  //OJF  TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

"  He  supplies  no  plan  of  the  Pompeian  house,  and 
does  not  mention  the  upper  story  which  remains  in  one 
of  tkejn  "  appears  in  a  well-known  Paper.  If  the  writer 
had  said  "  he  supplies  no  plans  of  Pompeian  houses 
...  of  them  ",  or  "  he  supplies  no  plan  of  the  Pompeian 
house  ...  in  one  of  the  samples  ",  he  would  not  have 
been  criticised  ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  here  blends 
these  two  Constructions,  and  the  result,  the  Mongrel 
as  it  were,  is  so  natural  that  ioxv  would  notice  anything 
wrong  as  they  read  the  whole  paragraph. 

To  show  how  common  the  tendency  is,  and  how 
natural  the  result  appears,  I  suggest  a  io.^  instances 
for  the  reader  to  consider :  let  him  find  the  two  regular 
Constructions  of  which  each  of  the  following  Construc- 
tions is  a  Blend  or  Contamination.* 

1.  "The  subject  is  rarely  handled  in  books,  and 
still  less  rarely  from  the  pulpit."  (This  is,  I  think,  the 
only  mistake  of  language,  in  the  whole  of  that  book). 

2.  "  The  house  .  .  .  was  in  the  best  condition  of 
any  .  .  ." 

3.  "  The  subject  is  of  less  importance  in  their 
estimation  to  the  handling." 

4.  "Ah!  there  was  'side'  amongst  the  conquerors 
in  those  days,  just  as  Baron  de  Browne  or  Smythc  puts 
on  now  with  their  subordinates," 

[The  three  last  passages  are  from  a  single  Novel 
by  a  well-known  writer :  4  contains  two  '  Contamina- 
tions ']. 


*  See  "  How  to  Learn  Philology  "  (Sonnenschein),  pp.  69-70,  145. 


GRAMMAR   OR  SYNTAX  323 

1.  '  still  less  often  '  + '  still  more  rarely ' ; 

2.  '  in  the  best  condition  of  all '  + '  in  a  better  con- 
dition than  any ' ; 

3.  'is  of  less  importance  than  .  .  .'  'yields,  in  respect 
of  its  importance,  to  .  .  .' ; 

4.  'just  as  B.  or  S.  puts  on  side'  +  'just  like  the  side 
which  B,  or  S.  puts  on  ' ; 

'  B.  or  S.  puts  on  with  his  subordinates '  + '  B.  and  S. 
put  on  with  their  subordinates '. 

I  could  quote  thousands  of  examples,  but  these  will 
suffice:  the  Construction  is  'wrong'  in  itself,  but  is  a 
mixture  of  two  Constructions  which  are  both  '  right '. 

'  He  didn't  make  more  mistakes  than  he  could  help ' 
is  a  'Contamination'  which  not  one  in  a  million  would 
notice:  in  fact,  it  has  become  'Good  Use'.  It  will 
surprise  the  reader  to  find,  when  he  analyses  the  words, 
that  '  than  he  could  7iot  help '  would  be  more  accurate, 
technically.  Mr.  G.  A.  Falk  called  my  attention  to  this 
instance. 

'  IV/iom  say  ye  that  I  am  ? '  is  another  case  where 
'  Good  Use '  would  probably  lend  her  queenly  sanction. 

(iv)  "A  bachelor's  room,  who  was  fond  of  shelves". 
Here  the  order  of  words  is  unsatisfactory :  '  the  room 
of  a  bachelor  .  .  .'  would  be  all  right. 

Whenever  you  come  across  such  mistakes  in  your 
reading,  stop  and  correct  them  by  (a)  changing  the 
Construction  (this  is  generally  easy),  and,  if  possible,  by 
(d)  changing  the  order  of  Words.  But  alter  as  little 
as  possible:  this  will  make  the  Exercise  the  very  best 
practice. 


CHAPTER    LXI.     WORDS,  OR  VOCABULARY. 


I  SHALL  say  little  here,  except  that  what  Prof.  Barrett 
Wendell  calls  '  Good  Use '  is  to  be  considered,  i.e.  what 
is  recognised  not  by  one  good  writer  only  but  by  the 
generality  of  good  writers  at  the  time  being.  For 
*  Good  Use '  varies. 

But  here,  as  in  the  sphere  of  Syntax,  I  would  say 
KEEP  ON  THE  SxVFE  SIDE.  There  may  be  some  slang 
word  which  has  almost  become  part  of  the  Literary 
Language  of  to-day  :  but,  unless  you  are  an  '  Authority ', 
you  had  better  wait,  and  use  an  older  and  safer  word. 

This  does  not  apply  universally.  If,  for  example, 
you  are  writing  a  Novel,  it  is  '  inappropriate '  to  make 
all  your  characters  speak  in  the  same  style,  as  Scott 
does.  The  Coster  and  the  Cockney  have  Dialects 
of  their  own,  and  it  would  be  unfair  to  accuse  them 
of  speaking  as  if  they  were  Penny-a-liners. 

Flaubert  used  to  take  enormous  pains  over  his  Vo- 
cabulary, so  that  it  should  be  not  only  pure  (i.e.  free 
from  slang  and  from  whatever  was  not  '  Good  Use  '), 
but  also  the  exact  expression  of  his  meaning  and  not 
of  any  other  meaning.  The  words  must  convey  one 
Idea  clearly,  and  one  Idea  only. 

Of  Obscurity  I  need  not  speak  here :  I  shall  simply 
refer  to  p.  228  foil.,  where  I  show  how  the  Technical 
and  Abstract  terms  account  for  a  good  deal.  The 
Double  Entendre  also  (intentional  or  unintentional)  is  too 

324 


WORDS,    OR    VOCABULARY  325 

familiar  to  need  much  illustration.  Supposing  that 
"  Money  returned  if  not  satisfactory "  followed  an  Ad- 
vertisement for  some  Cure,  then,  when  people  demanded 
back  their  money,  it  might  be  answered  that  "the  money 
was  quite  satisfactory".  A  certain  orator's  speeches  were 
full  of  Sentences  which  either  had  no  clear  meaning  or 
had  two  possible  meanings.  Of  course  there  are  occa- 
sions where  a  Double  Entendre  is  inlcndcd,  and  there- 
fore *  appropriate '  to  the  Writer's  aim. 

If  only  for  the  sake  of  the  jingle  of  sound,  it  is  well 
to  avoid  that  common  error  of  first  using  a  word  and 
then,  directly  afterwards,  again  using  it  [or  some  word 
of  the  same  family]  in  a  different  sense,  as  in  '  We 
cannot  make  out  why  he  makes  this  distinction ',  '  he 
felt  that  there  was  no  ill-feeling'. 

An  undoubted  difficulty  is  to  steer  between  Tautology 
and  needless  Variety.  I  hav^e  purposely  left  pp.  310-31 1 
just  as  I  had  dictated  them,  so  that  the  reader  may 
notice  the  bad  effect  of  the  repetition  of  the  word 
'  Paragraph '.  For  a  specimen  of  the  reverse — a  change 
of  words  where  the  idea  is  unchanged — see  p.  254.  This 
example  also  deserves  study  : — 

"  Every  quality  that  is  requisite  in  a  man  to  make 
him  completely  and  honourably  prosperous  is  necessary 
to  entire  success  in  the  games  of  boyj- ". 

A  needless  alteration  in  the  Construction  of  a 
Parallel  or  Balancing  Clause  (p.  292),  or  in  the  Subject 
of  a  Sentence,  is  also  to  be  avoided.  It  is  here  that 
a  Classical  Education  is  almost  bound  to  tell. 

For  Latin  and  Anglo-Saxon  Words,  see  pp.  244.  305. 


CHAPTER   LXII.     WRITING,   SPELLING, 
AND  PUNCTUATION. 


I  SHALL  only  offer  a  few  notes  here,  and  shall  refer 
to  the  Books  which  deal  with  these  subjects. 

As  to  Writi?ig,  it  should  above  all  things  be  clear 
and  legible,  with  enough  space  between  the  words  and 
between  the  lines.  The  latter  is  the  more  important 
in  one  way,  viz.  that  it  is  easier  to  insert  additions  if 
the  lines  are  further  apart.  Lately  I  have  taken  to 
writing  (for  the  Press)  on  every  other  line  instead  of 
on  every  line.  There  should  also  be  Margins  (see 
p.  362). 

Type-writing  (see  p.  369)  is  becoming  more  and  more 
commonly  used,  and  for  certain  purposes  it  is  indispen- 
sable. But  here  also  spaces  should  be  left  between 
the  lines,  as  well  as  Margins  at  the  sides  and  bottoms 
of  the  pages. 

P"resh  Paragraphs  should  begin  to  the  right,  i.e.  a  little 
hiland. 

For  the  question  of  Underlining,  see  p.  270;  and,  for 
the  Marginal  Analysis,  p.  362. 

As  to  Capital  Letters,  it  will  probably  be  thought 
that  this  Book  has  far  too  many :  at  any  rate,  I  think  it 
marks  almost  the  extreme  limit  to  which  one  may  go. 

The  position  of  the  body  while  you  are  writing  is  a 
matter  of  very  great  importance.  I  do  most  of  my 
MSS.  (and  of  my  work  generally)  standing  at  a  high 
desk.     P'or  details   I   must  refer  to  "  The  Training  of 

326 


WRITING,   SPELLING,   AND  PUNCTUATION    327 

the  Body"  (Swan  Sonnenschein).*  Here  I  will  just 
mention  that,  if  one  is  sitting,  the  seat  should  have 
a  back  and  should  not  be  too  narrow,  nor  should  it  be 
too  far  from  the  table  or  desk.  The  paper  should  be 
fair  and  square  before  one  and  should  not  go  across 
to  either  side,  but  the  desk  itself  should  slope  down 
towards  you.  Be  sure  to  have  a  good  light,  rather 
behind  you  and  to  the  left. 

Do  not  sit  for  too  long  at  a  time,  but  walk  about, 
or  work  standing,  for  a  change.  I  like  to  do  some  work 
sitting,  some  standing,  and  some  lying  down.  Much 
depends  on  the  subject.  It  is  worth  while  to  notice  that 
one  can  do  some  subjects  better  in  certain  positions  than 
in  others  (and  at  certain  times  of  the  day  also). 

Of  course  it  is  a  mistake  to  work  directly  after  a 
heavy  meal,  for  then  the  blood  is  needed  in  the 
digestive  organs  and  should  not  be  drawn  away  from 
them  to  the  brain.  But  it  is  also  a  great  mistake  to 
work  hard  directly  after  severe  exercise,  or  to  take 
severe  exercise  directly  after  hard  work.  Intervals  of 
gentle  exercise  (such  as  walking,  or  kicking  about)  are 
quite  a  different  thing :  the>-  may  help  the  brain-work 
very  considerably. 

Spelling. 

Here  'Good  Use'  is  most  important,  and  also  the 
principle  of  keeping  to  the  safe  side.  Such  spellings 
as  '  develop ',  '  labor ',  etc.,  are  growing  upon  us  rapidl}' : 
are  they  'correct'  yet,  or  do  they  still  have  a  soupcon 
of  America  such  as  the  severest  English  critics  object  to? 
If  so,  then  at  present '  develope '  and  '  labour '  are  safer. 

Only  let  us  remember  that  fashions  do  change. 

*  In  ihe  press. 


328  HOW   TO  EXPRESS  IDEAS:    STYLE 

Pitnciuation  deserves  a  little  volume  to  itself. 

To  say  that  a  piece  of  Composition  should  be  clear 
even  if  one  removes  the  stops  is  to  demand  too  much  : 
yet  to  write  such  a  piece  is  excellent  practice,  and  of 
course  in  Latin  this  test  may  constantly  be  applied. 

As  it  is,  Punctuation  is  a  great  help  to  clearness 
(see  p.  317),  and  to  Emphasis  (cp.  esp,  the  Note  of 
Exclamation). 

The  commonest  Faults  arc  the  following. 

(i)  Too  few  Commas  :  — 

'And  when  he  had  said  this,  he  lay  down'  is  a  type 
of  Sentence  where  I  should  prefer  to  punctuate 

'And,  when  he  had  said  this,  he  lay  down '. 

But  there  arc  many  who  prefer  the  former  method. 

In  the  follou'ing  instance,  a  Comma  should  most 
certainly  have  been  inserted  after  '  can ',  '  We  who  can 
go  to  the  country  ',  and  probably  after  '  we '  also.  I  may 
remark  that,  for  a  Sentence  like  'Those  who  can,  go 
to  the  country ',  neither  this  Punctuation,  nor  this  with 
an  extra  Comma  after  '  those ',  nor  the  absence  ol 
Commas,  gives  an  altogether  satisfactory  result.  It 
is  something  like  the  choice  between  '  The  cause  is 
sheep'  and  '  the  cause  are  sheep'.  A  change  is  needed, 
e.g.  to  '  sheep  are  the  cause '. 

Another  doubtful  case  is  where  there  is  a  'triplet': 
some  prefer  to  write 

'  his  father,  mother  and  children  .  .  .' 

Personally,  unless  the  'mother'  and  'children'  are 
meant  to  go  more  closely  together  than  the  '  father '  and 
'  mother ',  I  should  write 

'  his  father,  mother,  and  children  .    .' 


WRITING,   SPELLING,   AND  PUNCTUATION    329 

Now,  suppose  wc  go  on  to  say 

'  his  father,  mother,  and  children  (,)  were  at  the  station 
to  meet  him ', 

shall  we  put  a  Comma  after  '  children  ',  or  not  ?  This 
again  is  a  vexed  question.  There  was  one  learned 
English  Professor  who  would  have  always  written 

'his  father  mother  and  children  were  at  the  station  to 
meet  him '. 

(ii)  Commas  instead  of  Semicolons. 

(iii)  Colons  or  Semicolons  instead  of  Full  Stops. 

(iv)  Too  many  Notes  of  Exclamation. 

(v)  Omission  of  the  Note  of  Interrogation,  ?,  especially 
after  a  long  Sentence. 

(vi)  One  Printer's  fad  that  I  can  never  understand  is 
the  order  of  the  underlined  marks  in  such  a  Sentence  as 

"Where  is  he  going?"  "Oh,  he  is  going  to  the 
'  Parks,'  to  meet  his  cousin." 

Why  should  we  have  'Parks,'  and  not  'Parks',?  Some 
Printers  almost  invariably  alter  my  MSS.,  but  I  cannot 
believe  that  the  custom  has  a  scientific  basis. 

Correct  Punctuation  can  be  best  practised  in  Letter- 
writing,  or  in  the  correction  of  Letters  which  have  been 
written  by  others. 


CHAPTER  LXIII.     REVISIONS. 


1.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  others  will  generally  be 
able  to  Revise  your  Compositions  better  than  you  will, 
if  you  are  willing  to  let  them  do  so  and  if  they  are 
willing  also. 

2.  But,  if  you  are  going  to  Revise  them  for  yourself, 
be  sure  to  leave  as  long  an  interval  as  possible ;  for, 
after  an  interval,  what  you  have  written  will  become 
something  alien  to  you,  as  it  were,  and  you  will  be  able 
to  read  it  more  impartially.  Besides  this,  new  Ideas 
may  have  been  thought  out  in  the  meanwhile,  and 
unconsciously  you  will  have  corrected  certain  faults. 

3.  While  Revising,  you  must  think  of  your  Compo- 
sition as  if  it  were  the  work  of  your  deadliest  enemy, 
and  criticise  it  very  severely. 

4.  The  Ideas,  that  is  to  say,  the  Headings  and  Sub- 
Headings,  should  have  been  Revised  already  before  the 
Composition  is  written  out.  In  fact,  all  the  Collection, 
etc.,  of  Ideas  will  have  been  finished  before  you  Write 
a  word,  except  perhaps  the  Beginning  and  the  Ending. 

It  remains  for  you  therefore  to  criticise  and  Revise 
the  Expression  of  Ideas ;  and  at  first  you  must  not  d.j 
this  by  a  single  process.  This  is  why  I  use  the  word 
Revisions  instead  of  the  word  Revision,  for  there  are 
many  things  to  be  Revised,  and  they  cannot  all  be 
considered  at  once.  It  would  be  too  much  to  expect 
that  anyone  would  Revise  his  Composition,  let  us  say, 

330 


REVISIONS  331 

ten  times,  looking  out  for  something  fresh  each  time  : 
for  instance,  looking  out  at  one  time  for  '  Obscurity  \ 
at  another  for  Prolixity,  at  another  for  Dtclness,  at  another 
for  Want  of  Cotincxion,  and  so  on.  But  there  are  one 
or  two  points  of  view  which  should  be  treated  separately. 

5.  You  should  read  the  Essay  or  Speech  aloud,  if  you 
can,  with  a  view  to  correcting  the  Rhythm;  and  a 
special  Revision  might  also  be  given  to  the  Grammar 
and  Punctuation,  and  perhaps  even  to  the  choice  of 
Words. 

So  a  really  important  piece  of  Composition  will  have 
to  be  Revised  at  least  four  or  five  times. 


Part    IV. 


PART    IV.    HOW   TO   TEACH,   LEARN, 

AND   PRACTISE    COMPOSITION: 
WITH   GENERAL   HINTS. 


CHAPTERS 

LXIV.  How  TO  Correct  Compositions 

LXV.  How  TO  Teach  Composition 

LXVI.  Aims  of  Teaching 

LXVU.  How  TO  Practise 

LXVI  1 1.  How  TO  Read   . 

LXIX.  How  TO  Learn   from  Lectures 

Etc.  ... 

LXX.  General  Hints  and  Helps 


Speeches, 


PACK 

335 
337 
345 
347 
352 

358 
•^60 


CHAPTER    LXIV.    HOW  TO  CORRECT 
COMPOSITIONS. 


The  pupil  benefits  little  if  the  Teacher  simply  takes  a 
^general  iuiprcssion '  of  an  Essay,  and  sa}'s  that  the 
Essay  is  worth  so  many  marks,  or  reaches  a  certain 
standard.  This  may  produce  quite  a  fair  estimate  of 
the  Essay,  in  fact  in  some  cases  it  may  give  the  very 
best  idea  of  the  relative  merits  of  a  number  of  Essays, 
but  for  the  pupil  himself  it  is  next  door  to  useless. 

Nor  is  it  much  good  to  tinderline  individual  mistakes, 
and  yet  to  fail  to  point  out  why  they  are  mistakes, 
what  is  the  principle  underlying  them,  and  hon'  the 
mistakes  might  have  been  avoided. 

Unless  the  Teacher  has  the  natural  gift  of  Correcting 
Essays,  he  must  analyse  the  Essay,  in  order  to  criticise 
the  Ideas  and  their  Arrangevient.  But  it  is  much  better 
that  this  should  be  done  by  the  Essay-Writer  himself, 
and  that  the  Scheme  should  be  given  in  together  with 
the  Essay. 

The  first  thing  to  do  will  be  to  criticise  the  Ideas 
(see  p.  54),  e.g.  their  Collection,  Selection,  Proportion, 
and  Arrangement ;  and  then  to  criticise  their  Expres- 
sion, for  instance  to  call  attention  to  the  obscurity  of 
the  language,  its  monotony,  its  harshness  of  Rhythm. 

With  each  individual  fault  should  be  pointed  out 
the  underlying  principle :  the  fault  should  be  Corrected 
(if  possible)  by  the  Essay-Writer  himself,  and,  above 

335 


336  I/LYTS   ON  COMPOSITION 

ali,  he  should  be  made  to  t(rke  N'otes  of  his  connnoncst 
faults,  and  he  should  be  told  the  best  Exercises  by 
which  he  may  amend  them. 

A  special  Note-book  might  be  kept  in  zvhich  the  mistakes 
■would  be  zvritte7i  down  under  their  Headings,  for  instance 
under  such  Headings  as  Clearness  (or  Obscurity).  With 
each  mistake  should  be  noted  what  the  mistake  is,  why 
it  has  been  made,  and  what  would  have  been  better,  or 
(to  put  it  in  the  language  of  School-books)  what  would 
have  been  the  right  answer. 

The  attention  of  each  individual  pupil  should  be 
devoted  to  Exercises  on  those  special  points  in  which 
he  is  zueakest.  He  should  be  made  to  correct  a  number 
of  faults  of  the  same  kind  in  the  Compositions  of  others. 
A  teacher  of  thirty  pupils  very  seldom  remembers  that, 
in  the  thirty  Compositions,  he  will  probably  have 
examples  of  nearly  every  kind  of  mistake,  and  that  he  has 
at  hand  a  number  of  Exercises  in  criticism,  which  he 
may  with  great  advantage  set  before  his  pupils,  while 
the  subject  is  still  fresh  in  their  minds. 

The  Teacher  should  not  leave  too  long  an  interval 
between  the  writing -out  and  the  correction  of  the 
Essay :  he  should  correct  it  while  the  pupil  still 
remembers  it. 

A  good  plan  is  to  make  a  Class  practise  Speaking, 
either  after  or  without  preparation  :  those  who  are  not 
Speaking  should  note  the  faults,  and  each  Speech  should 
be  criticised  directly  after  it  is  finished.  The  Teacher 
can  be  at  hand  to  see  fair  play,  and  to  supervise  and 
direct.  Notes  should  be  made  by  each  Speaker,  after 
the  criticism.  The  subjects  should  of  course  be  of 
interest  to  the  pupils. 


CHAPTER    LXV.    HOW   TO   TEACH   COMPOSITION. 


There  are  many  reasons  why  Books  and  Teachers  so 
often  fail  to  Teach. 

First  of  all  they  may  be  too  fond  of  abstract  phrases, 
and  may  not  suggest  nearly  enough  examples  and 
instances  to  make  their  meaning  clear.  I  have  (on 
purpose)  left  an  instance  of  this  on  page  178:  it  will  be 
found  that  what  I  have  written  there  is  not  nearly  so 
clear  as  it  would  have  been  if  I  had  given  examples. 

Teachers  and  Books  frequently  omit  to  explain  the 
subject  as  a  whole,  and  to  show  how  extraordinarily 
difficult  it  is.  They  plunge  straight  into  the  intricacies 
of  the  subject,  as  if  it  were  likely  to  be  as  simple  to 
the  pupil  as  it  is  to  the  Teachers. 

Such  Teachers  will  not  at  the  outset  lay  any  firm 
foundations  on  which  to  base  their  later  teaching. 
They  do  not  pay  attention  to  each  difficulty  of  the 
subject  in  turn,  so  as  to  coriccntrate  their  attcjition  on 
each  part  of  the  subject  in  turn  :  rather,  the)'  spend  their 
time  as  it  were  in  polishing  the  surface. 

Again,  I  ha\e  noticed  many  Teachers  at  the  Uni- 
versity who  have  criticised,  in  precisely  the  same  wa\', 
the  scholar  who  is  likely  to  get  a  First  Division  of  the 
First  Class,  and  the  scholar  who  will  be  only  too  thank- 
ful if  he  scrapes  into  the  Third  Division  of  the  I'hirtl 
Class.  The  polishing  of  the  surface,  and  the  attempt 
to  remove  little  tiny  faults  or  blemishes,  may  be  quite 

Z  337 


338  HINTS   ON  COMPOSITION 

appropriate  for  the  already  skilful  and  advanced  pupil, 
but  for  the  beginner  such  a  polishing  is  quite  out  of 
place.  It  would  be  equally  wrong  to  begin  the  details 
of  a  picture  before  you  have  sketched  its  outlines. 

Once  again,  Books  and  Teachers  seldom  point  out  the 
real  interest  and  vabie  of  the  subject.  They  begin  to 
Teach  at  once,  whereas  they  ought  first  of  all  to  show 
that  the  subject  is  worth  teaching :  either  they  do  not 
realise  its  importance  themselves,  or,  if  they  do,  they 
do  not  insist  on  their  pupils  realising  it  also. 

One  great  branch  of  Teaching  they  too  often  exclude  : 
they  do  not  give  the  pupil  nearly  enough  criticism  to 
do.  We  enjoy  finding  fault  with  someone  else  ;  and,  so 
long  as  this  habit  of  criticism  is  kept  within  due  limits, 
it  is  not  only  a  good  method  of  learning,  but  is  also 
indispensable  as  a  habit  to  be  carried  into  every  depart- 
ment of  life.  A  pupil  should  certainly  spend  a  great 
deal  of  his  time  in  finding  out  and  correcting  faults  in 
the  work  of  others :  those  who  would  refuse  to  work 
hard  in  any  other  way  can  thus  be  made  to  take  an 
interest  in  the  subject  at  once.  Give  a  boy  a  bad  piece 
of  Composition,  and  tell  him  that  he  is  to  be  the  critic 
and  to  find  out  the  faults  in  it,  and  to  show  why  these 
faults  are  faults,  and  the  boy  will  not  fail  to  learn  a 
great  deal.  As  it  is,  he  does  not  take  nearly  as  much 
interest  in  his  work  because  he  is  always  trying  some- 
thing himself  and  seeing  his  faults  called  failures. 

More  generally  speaking,  every  pupil  should  be  made 
not  only  to  criticise  and  correct,  but  also  occasionally  to 
Teach.  In  learning,  there  is  notJiing,  absolutely  nothing, 
that  can  take  the  place  of  the  attempt  to  Teach  others. 
It  ought  to  be  made  an  integral  part  of  the  Class-work, 
at  any  rate  in  the  higher  Classes,  that  each  pupil  in  turn 


HOW   TO    TEACH  COMPOSITION  339 

should  Teach  the  form  for  a  short  time  every  week  or 
even  every  day,  and  then  should  be  criticised  by  the 
rest  of  the  form.  It  will  be  the  master's  duty  to  see 
that  the  criticism  is  fair  and  not  unkind.  The  boy  who 
is  to  give  an  account  of  the  subject  to  nearly  thirty 
boys,  of  about  his  own  age,  will  be  almost  sure  to  be 
put  upon  ai-s  mettle  and  to  do  his  level  best.  He  will 
not  be  keen  to  make  a  fool  of  himself,  and  he  may  even 
get  answers  ready  for  the  criticisms  which  ma)'  be  made. 
The  rest  of  the  boys  will  be  kept  awake  by  this,  far 
more  easily  than  if  the  master  went  on  talking  and  asking 
questions  the  whole  time. 

There  is  not  time  to  mention  all  the  faults  of 
Teaching,  but  a  certain  one  cannot  be  passed  over,  and 
that  is  that  the  pupils  arc  not  given  nearly  enough 
choice.  Very  often  one  single  subject  is  set  for  an 
Essay,  and  that  subject  is  supremely  uninteresting  or 
unpractical,  perhaps  for  every  single  pupil:  occasionally, 
at  any  rate,  the  pupil  should  be  allowed  to  choose  his 
own  subject  absolutely  freely,  or  else  within  certain 
limits.     He  may  (see  p.  14)  select  out  of  a  large  list. 

Teachers  have  undoubtedly  many  difficulties  to  con- 
tend against ;  most  of  them  find  little  time  for  special 
work  with  individual  pupils ;  a  great  many  of  them  have 
never  learnt  the  subject  themselves :  having  done  it 
more  or  less  by  the  light  of  nature,  they  either  still  do  it 
badly  themselves,  or  else  do  it  well  enough  but  without 
the  ghost  of  a  notion  as  to  how  a  beginner  should  set 
about  doing  it.  It  is  not  too  sweeping  a  statement 
that  in  England  few  Teachers  know  how  to  Teach 
anything,  except  the  art  of  being  true  gentlemen 
and  true  'sportsmen'.  Teaching  does  not  come  to  most 
b}'  nature,  and  it  has  not  come  to  them  by  art.     Of 


340  HINTS   ON  COMPOSITION 

all   subjects,   Essay-Writing   is   that  which   they  most 
lamentably  fail  to  Teach. 

The  Examination- System  throughout  our  country  is 
about  as  useless  for  Teaching  purposes  as  it  could  well 
be.  Let  us  consider  how  valuable  it  might  easily  be.  We 
may  take  for  granted  that  in  an  Examination  the  person 
does  his  best,  that  is  to  say,  the  incentive  of  getting 
marks  (or  whatever  it  is)  makes  him  put  forth  every 
effort.  We  may  therefore  presume  that  his  work  is 
nearly  as  good  as  effort  can  make  it,  and  yet  what 
happens  to  his  written  zvork,  presumably  his  very  best 
work,  when  it  has  been  looked  over  and  marked  ?  In 
nine  himdrcd  and  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  thousand  the 
work  is  never  looked  at  again.  This  error  is  singularly 
stupid,  for,  if  the  papers  were  taken  and  if  they  were 
gone  through  and  corrected  soon  afterwards  by  the 
Teacher  with  the  pupil,  they  could  be  made  a  most 
splendid  means  of  pointing  out  the  faults  as  well  as 
the  merits.  Every  Examination  Paper  that  is  worth 
the  name  should  not  only  be  answered,  but  should  be 
gone  through  afterwards  ;  then  the  right  answers  should 
be  given  and  learnt,  and  the  wrong  answers  corrected. 

Only  a  few  more  suggestions  can  be  offered  here,  and 
for  details  I  must  refer  to  the  Chapter  on  '  How  to 
Correct '. 

At  the  very  outset  the  difficulties  of  the  subject  should 
be  explained,  and  also  the  various  processes  which  are 
involved  ;  thus  in  Essay-Writing  the  pupil  should  be 
made  to  understand  the  difficulty  of  Collecting  Ideas, 
and  then  of  Selecting  and  Rejecting,  and  then  of 
Underlining  the  important  Ideas,  and  then  of  Ar- 
ranging the  Ideas.  He  should  be  made  to  feel  that 
all  the  processes  are  very  hard,  even  when  taken  sepa- 


//OIF  TO   TEACH  COMPOS/T/ON  341 

rately.  He  should  also  be  made  to  feel  the  difficulties 
of  Expressing  Ideas,  and  this  should  include  the  diffi- 
culty of  Clearness,  Emphasis,  Variety,  Rh)thm,  and 
so  on. 

He  should  also  be  told  ivhy  the  subject  a7id  all  its 
processes  are  interesting,  and  zi'hy  they  are  valuable,  not 
only  for  Essay-\vritinL,s  but  also  (e.g.  see  p.  400)  for 
other  purposes  as  well. 

Then  he  should  ha\-c  Exercises  on  these  various  sepa- 
rate processes,  one  at  a  time:  e.g.  for  Comparisons  he 
should  have  at  least  three  different  classes  of  Exercises 
(see  p.  289).     The  Exercises  might  take  these  forms : — 

(i)  What  things  do  you  understand  best?  The 
answer  will  perhaps  be  some  Game  or  form  of 
Athletics. 

(2)  What  lessons  can  you  draw  from  this  Game 
(or  whatever  it  is  that  you  understand  well).?  The 
answers  will  perhaps  be  'obedience  to  the  Captain's 
orders',  etc.  (pp.  289-290). 

(3)  Find  something  which  )-ou  know  well,  and  which 
will  illustrate  the  following  principles  : — Co-operation, 
Division  of  Labour,  etc. 

The  learner  should  have  practice  not  only  in  doing, 
but  also  (as  we  have  seen  above)  in  correcting.  He 
should  learn  to  correct  the  mistakes  of  others,  as  well 
as  his  own,  and  to  see  exactly  where  the  faults  lie,  and 
then  he  should  be  made  to  re-ivrite  correctly  that  which 
has  been  done  incorrectly. 

W'hen  he  has  read  anj'thing  in  his  work,  he  should 
(if  possible)  be  made  to  put  his  acquired  knowledge 
to  the  test  and  to  apply  it :  he  should  never  be  allowed 
to  learn  anything  that  is  worth  learning,  without  going 
through  it  again   to  see  whether  he  really  knows  and 


342  HINTS  ON  COMPOSITION 

understands  it,  and,  if  possible,  doing  some  Exercise  to 
see  whether  he  has  really  mastered  it.  He  should  be 
made  to  look  at  the  same  point  in  many  different 
aspects. 

Even  while  he  is  still  young,  he  should  be  allowed  to 
some  extent  to  choose  his  own  subjects,  and  to  do  these 
especially.  This  should  be  at  intervals,  the  rest  of  the 
time  being  spent  in  practising  weak  subjects  and  weak 
departments  of  his  Composition,  such  as  the  Arrange- 
ment of  Ideas  (p.  172),  and  (p.  227)  the  power  of  Ex- 
pressing them  clearly. 

A  great  deal  should  be  done  viva  voce.  The  pupils 
in  any  subject,  whether  it  be  History  or  Geography, 
should  (as  far  as  is  feasible)  be  made  to  try  the  subject 
before  they  read  or  learn  about  it ;  after  the  lesson 
they  should  be  made  to  try  it  once  again,  writing  down 
the  Ideas  as  Headings.  The  Teacher  should  help  and 
direct  them  in  finding  out  these  Ideas  for  themselves, 
for  instance  (see  p.  287)  by  means  of  Comparisons  and 
Contrasts. 

With  regard  to  Style,  as  well  as  Ideas,  the  Neiv  Testa- 
ment should  certainly  form  the  basis  of  study :  see  p.  217. 
It  is  a  fault,  if  not  a  positive  sin,  to  use  the  New  Testa- 
ment only  for  the  purposes  of  teaching  boys,  e.g.,  that 
St.  John  was  confined  in  the  castle  of  Machaerus,  and 
never  to  teach  them  any  lessons  either  of  morality  or  of 
the  kind  which  I  have  alluded  to  on  page  217.  I  am 
very  strongly  of  opinion  that  whatever  can  be  taught 
from  the  New  Testament  should  be  taught  from  it.  We 
cannot  easily  teach  such  subjects  as  Anatomy,  Physi- 
ology, Euclid,  Algebra,  or  Latin  Grammar,  from  the 
New  Testament,  but  we  can  teach  much  of  the  art  of 
Composition  from  it. 


J/OJV  TO   TEACfr  COMPOSITION  343 

Every  now  and  then,  Time-Essays  should  be  given, 
that  is  to  say,  an  Essay  should  be  set  which  has  to  be 
done  within  a  given  time  ;  this  makes  a  pleasant  change, 
or  an  unpleasant  change,  but  anyhow  it  is  a  change  and 
it  must  quicken  the  pupil's  powers  and  improve  his 
promptitude.  For  the  pupil  should  aim  not  only  at 
correctness  a?id  soujidncss,  but  also  at  rapidity. 

Debates  and  short  Speeches  are  also  an  admirable 
Exercise.  Forms  and  Classes  at  Schools  ought  to  have 
plenty  of  Debates,  and,  to  give  the  subject  some 
interest,  the  pupils  might  even  take  various  characters, 
e.g.  represent  various  statesmen.  No  pupil  should  be 
allowed  to  read  out  his  speech  :  at  the  most  he  should 
be  allowed  to  refer  to  Headings  which  he  has  prepared 
beforehand.  During  the  Debate,  criticism  of  course 
should  be  allowed  at  the  end  of  each  Speech,  and  the 
master  should  also  criticise,  but  the  most  important 
thing  is  that,  at  the  end  of  the  Debate,  every  pupil 
should  write  down  the  main  Ideas  on  both  sides  of  the 
question,  the  '  Pros  and  Cons ',  and  the  master  should 
then  go  over  them  on  the  Black-board,  and,  after  rub- 
bing them  out,  he  should  make  each  boy  reproduce 
them.  Before  each  fresh  lesson,  the  chief  Ideas  of  the 
old  lesson  should  be  repeated. 

Of  course  all  this  means  a  great  deal  of  time  and 
trouble  and  preparation,  and  a  great  deal  of  thought  and 
tact  on  the  part  of  the  Teacher  as  well  as  of  the  learner, 
and  of  course  such  labour  will  be  very  slow  and  difficult 
at  first.  But  no  success  can  be  expected  without  such 
labour,  and,  if  this  system  were  introduced  into  our 
Schools,  we  should  be  fitting  every  pupil  to  become  in 
his  turn  a  Teacher,  if  ever  the  opportunity  should  arise. 

As  it  is  now,  zee  send  out  our  millions  of  youn^,  not 


344  HINTS   ON  COMPOSITION 

only  badly  taught,  but  with  not  the  slightest  notion  of  the 
right  methods  of  Teaching,  whereas  the  boy  who  had 
tried  to  Lecture,  if  only  for  five  minutes,  before  a  class 
of  twenty-five  other  boys,  would  at  least  have  realised 
that  Teaching  is  a  very  difficult  art ;  at  least  he  would 
have  had  his  interest  aroused,  and  he  would  have  had 
the  advantages  of  practice. 

Let  me  finish  by  exposing  that  terrible  fallacy  that,  if 
you  canuot  TeacJi  uaturally,  if  you  are  not  a  born  Teacher, 
you  will  never  be  a  Teacher  at  all.  Not  one  person  out 
of  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  is  a  born  Teacher,  but  there 
is  no  reason  on  earth  why  every  one  of  the  thousand 
should  not  master  certain  elementary  principles  of  the 
art  of  Teaching,  such  as  the  following : 

to  find  why  the  subject  is  interesting  or  useful,  and  to 
show  the  pupils  why  ; 

to  put  him.self  into  the  position  of  the  pupils,  and  to 
ask  himself '  What  do  they  understand  already,  and  by 
means  of  which  of  these  things,  that  they  understand 
already,  can  I  best  Teach  those  things  which  they  do 
not  yet  understand  ? 

to  make  the  pupils  correct  faults,  helping  them  to  see 
ivhy  faults  are  faults  ; 

to  make  them  practise  each  part  of  the  suh]cct  per  se, 
by  means  of  special  Exercises  ; 

to  make  the  pupils  practise  Teaching  ; 

and  so  on. 

These  are  a  very  few  of  the  many  principles  which 
every  Teacher  should  know.  He  may  not  be  able  to 
teach  perfectly,  or  even  well,  when  he  has  tried  to  put 
them  into  practice,  but  at  any  rate  he  will  not  teach 
quite  so  badly  as  he  would  probably  have  taught  by 
the  lis^ht  of  nature. 


CHAPTER  LXVI.     AIMS  OF  TEACHING. 


1  r  is  a  very  great  crroi"  to  suppose  that  the  Teaching  of 
any  single  subject  should  have  only  one  single  Aim  and 
Object,  unless  indeed  we  define  this  Aim  and  Object 
as  "  true  development  and  improvement ". 

But  what  is  /;7/^  development  and  improvement?  It 
is  the  highest  development  and  improvement  of  each 
individual,  through  his  own  efforts,  so  that  he  may 
help  others  to  develope  and  improve  similarly.  The 
Americans  might  call  this  'Teaching  each  individual  to 
become  as  good  a  Citizen  as  he  can '. 

1.  While  having  this  as  its  Aim  and  Object,  the 
Teaching  should  be  as  interesting  and  as  pleasant  as 
possible. 

2.  It  should  also  be  of  the  greatest  possible  advantage 
and  profit,  to  the  individual's  '  mind,  body,  and  estate '. 

It  is  not  enough  that  the  individual  should  absorb 
a  mass  of  '  information  ',  or  even  that  he  should  be 
skilful  and  successful  in  his  own  department  (e.g.  Essay- 
Writing).  If  this  is  all  that  the  Teaching  has  done, 
then  it  has,  to  some  extent,  failed. 

It  should  have  taught  the  individual,  for  example, 

(c/)  how  to  use  this  information,  as  well  as  to  under- 
stand it ; 

{b)  how  to  stud}'  other  subjects  besides  his  own  ; 

{c)  how  to  teach  his  own  subject  and  also  other 
subjects  ; 

{ci)  how  to  improve  himself  all  round. 

345 


346  HINTS  ON  COMPOSITION 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  Aims  of  Teaching :  in  other 
words,  those  who  teach  Essay-writing  should  of  course 
try  to  help  their  pupils  to  prepare  and  write  good 
Essays,  and  should  put  into  their  hands  the  means 
of  self-correction,  and  the  means  of  teaching  and 
correcting  others  ;  but  they  should  also  try  to  exercise 
and  develope  the  mind  and  character  of  their  pupils  in 
all  the  best  possible  directions. 


CHAPTER    LXVII.     HOW  TO  PRACTISE. 


The  Habit  of  Practice  is  one  which  is  very  seldom 
acquired  in  early  years,  but  it  is  among  the  most 
valuable  habits  of  life.  Benjamin  Franklin  was  one 
of  the  few  who  understood  how  to  acquire  it.  I  cannot 
but  think  that,  if  it  were  once  acquired,  that  is  to  say 
if  a  correct  and  scientific  and  interesting  system  of 
Practice  were  once  acquired  for  any  one  subject,  it 
could  easily  be  applied,  mutatis  viiitandis,  to  practically 
any  other  also. 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  we  may  begin  by  a  io-w  words 
on  the  wrong  method  of  Practising. 

In  Essay-Writing  and  Speaking  it  is  wrong  Practice 
(at  any  rate  at  the  outset)  simply  to  try  to  do  Essays, 
or  make  Speeches,  to  try,  that  is  to  say,  to  do  the  whole 
Essay  or  Speech  as  a  single  piece  of  work,  and  not 
to  divide  it  into  parts  (see  p.  45),  and  to  Practise  each 
part  by  itself  Why  should  this  be  wrong  ?  One  reason 
is  that  your  Essay  or  Speech  is  certain  to  have  many 
faults,  and,  unless  you  take  these  faults  one  by  one,  you 
will  never  really  correct  any  single  one  of  them.  You 
cannot  correct  any  one  part  proper))-  when  you  have 
to  be  attending  to  ten  other  parts  at  the  same  time. 

It  is  a  mistake  also  not  to  make  notes,  i.e.  always  to 
be  doing,  and  never  correeting ;  never  to  analyse  one's 
merits  or  faults,  or  the  faults  or  merits  of  others,  and 
never  to  find  out  the  causes  and  underl}-ing  principles. 

As  to  tlie  right  zvay  of  Praetising,  many  of  the  above 

347 


348  HINTS  ON  COMPOSITION 

Chapters  will  suggest  methods  for  each  particular  de- 
partment. Thus  on  page  63  foil,  will  be  found  a  way  of 
Practising  the  Collection  of  Ideas,  on  page  172  foil,  a 
way  of  Practising  their  Arrangement,  on  page  231  a  way 
of  Practising  Clearness  ;  and  so  on.  For  example, 
Bacon's  Essays  could  be  Analysed,  and  the  Headings 
could  then  be  reproduced  from  Memory  (after  an  in- 
terval), then  corrected,  then  re-arranged,  then  corrected 
again,  and  then  Expressed. 

One  rule  may  be  of  great  use.  When  I  was  treating 
of  the  choice  of  subjects  I  said  that,  if  the  occasion 
were  an  important  one,  such  as  an  Examination  where 
success  was  the  main  object,  then  it  would  be  as  well 
to  choose  one's  strongest  subject ;  but  for  ordinary 
occasions,  where  improvement  should  be  the  object 
rather  than  success,  it  is  better  to  choose  one's  weakest 
subject.  In  practice,  then,  go  for  yotir  iveakest  points, 
but  ill  euiergencics  nse  your  strongest  points* 

Practise  simple  tilings  first,  and  Practise  them  if  pos- 
sible in  their  right  order.  The  order  has  been  given 
in  the  previous  pages  of  this  book  (see  p.  36) :  for 
instance,  the  Collection  of  Headings,  and  then  of  Sub- 
Headings,  should  go  before  Selection,  and  this  before 
Arrangement,  and  this  before  Expression,  and  so  on. 

Each  part  must  be  Practised  by  itself,  and  some 
parts,  such  as  the  use  of  Comparisons  and  Contrasts, 
require  (see  p.  289)  three  separate  methods  of  Practice. 

To  quote  an  instance,  we  have  seen  that  the  Arrange- 
mc!it  of  Ideas  should  be  taken  as  a  separate  Exercise, 
and  that  cither  the  "  Card-System "  should  be  used, 
or  the  division   of  Ideas   into  "  i,  2,  3,  rr,  b,  c'\ 

The   Realising    of  Ideas    has   already   been    treated 

*  Cp.  the  advice  in  "  Lessons  in  Lawn  Tennis"  (Upcott  Gill). 


HO IV   TO   PRACTISE  349 

(p.  231);  but  it  is  so  important,  so  essential,  that 
it  needs  a  special  word  here. 

Di'azviug,  and  the  use  of  Diagrams,  are  of  very  great 
value :  we  arc  apt  to  learn  far  too  much  by  words,  and 
far  too  little  by  clear  Ideas  and  by  sights.  A  Diagram, 
or  a  Drawing,  or  a  mental  picture  of  a  thing,  will  often 
help  to  make  it  very  clear  when  nothing  else  will. 

Paraphrasing  is  also  valuable.  Poetry  should  be  para- 
phrased into  Prose,  and  Prose  into  Poetry,  and,  at  an 
advanced  stage  in  Essa}'-Writing  or  Speaking,  various 
styles  might  be  imitated.  At  any  rate,  various  forms 
of  Expression  should  be  studied  side  by  side,  for 
instance  the  Abstract  and  the  Concrete.  Supposing, 
for  example,  that  we  took  the  phrase  "  Wisdom  brings 
happiness ",  this  would  be  .Abstract  :  a  Concrete  ex- 
pression would  be  "  Wise  men  are  happy  ",  a  still  more 
Concrete  expression  would  be  "  Socrates,  who  was  wise, 
was  happy ",  and  one  still  more  Concrete  "  Socrates, 
whenever  he  had  done  some  wise  thing,  was  happy ". 
Personification  v/ould  give  the  same  idea,  e.g.  "  Happi- 
ness is  a  daughter  of  wisdom  ".     Cp.  p.  273. 

As  we  have  seen  on  page  243,  it  is  essential  to  con- 
sider the  point  of  view  of  the  reader  or  hearer  rather 
than  merely  one's  own  point  of  view  :  in  other  words, 
one  must  iinderstand  the  mind  of  the  reader  or  hearer. 
Hence  anything  which  encourages  sympathy  with  others 
must  be  good  for  the  Essay-Writer  or  Speaker,  and  it  is 
the  best  Practice  for  him  to  be  always  asking  himself 
'  What  interests  A  or  B  ? '  and  '  What  is  well-known  and 
familiar  to  him  ? '  in  other  word's  to  take  stock  of  other 
people's  minds. 

Indispensable,  in  Practising,  is  the  art  (or  the  trouble) 
of   cutting  out  afterwards  whatever  is  unnecessary  or 


350  HINTS   ON  COMPOSITION 

bad,  and  of  freely  criticising  one's  own  work.  It  is 
almost  as  good  Practice  to  do  this  to  the  work  of 
others.  Excellent  Books  for  this  purpose  can  be 
bought  on  Book.'^talls  at  a  halfpenny  each  :  the  cheaper 
they  are,  the  more  useful  they  are  likely  to  be !  One 
can  often  take  it  for  granted  that  a  Book  which  origin- 
ally cost  six  shillings,  and  is  now  offered  for  a  half- 
penny, contains  materials  for  criticism.  Only  it  must 
not  always  be  other  people  that  you  criticise :  it  must 
sojnetimes  be  yourself. 

A  special  Exercise  is  to  find  out  ivliy  you  have  failed : 
not  merely  to  say  that  so-and-so  is  wrong,  but  to  find 
out  why  it  is  wrong,  and  how  the  mistake  might  have 
been  avoided.  And  then  it  is  very  necessary  to  irgister 
the  faults  under  their  different  Headings,  and  to  Practise 
these  especially.  In  order  to  analyse  your  mistakes,  to 
make  notes  of  them,  and  to  watch  your  progress,  you 
should  constantly  keep  at  your  side  either  Note-books 
or  Cards. 

One  or  two  really  good  samples,  for  instance  the 
passage  on  page  212,  should  be  gone  through  and  read 
out  loud  again  and  again :  I  know  one  passage  in  which 
I  found  five  new  points  even  after  I  had  studied  it 
twenty  times. 

A  few  words  may  be  added  in  conclusion. 

While  you  are  Practising,  or  rather  before  you  begin 
to  Practise,  be  sure  that  the  work  is  made  as  interesting 
as  possible  (see  p.  255).  There  must  be  some  drudgery, 
but  probably,  the  less  there  is,  the  better  the  work  will 
be  done.  The  notion  that  Practice  imist  be  unpleasant 
is  gradually  being  done  away  with  in  Education. 

Secondly,  always  nse  effort  and  put  your  energy  into 
the  work.     If  this  is  done  in  the  first  stages,  it  will  save 


I/OIV  TO   PRACTISE  351 

time  and  energy  in  the  long  run.  This  does  not  mean 
fast  work :  it  means  energetic  work.  They  are  two 
very  different  things. 

Thirdly,  w/ien  the  attention  begijis  to  flag,  then,  if  you 
are  not  too  tired,  turn  to  something  else.  Practise  some 
other  thing :  for  instance,  a  change  from  Collecting 
Ideas  would  be  to  paraphrase  Abstract  Language 
(see  p.  233).  But,  if  it  be  possible,  almost  directly  a 
thing  begins  to  tire  you,  avoid  going  on  working  at 
it.  You  ma}^,  for  instance,  try  to  Collect  (by  yourself) 
Headings  for  some  of  the  Essay-Subjects  in  '  Pros  and 
Cons ',  and  then  refer  to  the  book  itself.  But,  directly 
}'our  Ideas  cease  to  come,  rest,  or  change  your  work,  or 
else  do  some  other  part  of  it :  e.g.  draw  a  Map,  or  else 
read  the  Authorised  Version  for  the  sake  of  studying 
the  Rh>thm. 


CHAPTER  LXVIII.    HOW  TO  READ. 


People  are  often  told  to  read,  or  they  want  to  read,  and 
they  are  often  told  or  they  decide  for  themselves  ivhat 
to  read,  but  they  are  seldom  if  ever  told  Jww  to  read : 
the  result  of  it  is  that  most  of  them  do  it  in  quite  the 
wrong  way. 

I  may  as  well  begin,  therefore,  with  a  few  words  as  to 
how  one  should  not  read. 

One  should  not  attack  a  Book  or  Article,  etc.,  before 
one  has  carefully  thought  out  the  subject  for  oneself :  this 
does  not  apply  to  Novels  and  Stories,  though  even  to 
them  it  might  also  apply  occasionally. 

Secondly,  one  should  7iot  begin  by  reading  only  a  part 
of  the  Book,  etc.,  and  mastering  that :  the  whole  should 
be  read  through  quickly  first. 

Thirdly,  one  should  not  simply  read  a  Book  or  Article 
once,  and  then  put  it  aside  for  ever.  To  do  this  is 
almost  as  bad  as,  or  ev^en  worse  than,  the  second  fault 
of  beginning  some  single  part  very  carefully  before  one 
has  grasped  the  general  ideas. 

Fourthly,  one  should  not  analyse  a  Book,  etc.,  page  by 
page,  or  Paragraph  by  Paragraph,  or  Sentence  by 
Sentence.  It  should  be  analysed  ///  Sections,  probably 
in  Chapters,  and  the  Analysis  should  not  be  put  aside 
when  it  has  been  made :  it  should  be  reproduced  and 
studied. 

352 


HOW   TO  kEAD  353 

Last  of  all,  when  a  Book,  etc.,  has  been  read,  the 
information  should  not  be  left  unused.  It  is  a  bad 
thing  to  stock  oneself  with  information  which  one 
never  uses.  The  mind  in  such  a  state  has  been  com- 
pared to  an  overloaded  stomach. 

I  can  now  say  a  few  words  about  tJie  right  ivay  of 
reading,  taking  it  for  granted  that  the  Book,  etc.,  is 
ivortJi  reading. 

It  should  not  be  in  bad  print :  never  has  there  been  a 
time  when  to  use  bad  print  would  be  such  false  econom}\ 
Books  are  cheaper  now  than  they  ever  were,  and  to 
injure  the  eyesight  and  much  more  besides  for  the 
sake  of  a  few  pence  is  wretched  policy.  This  does 
not  mean  tliat  one  should  altogether  giv-e  up  small 
pocket  editions  of  books :  these  are  very  useful  for 
travelling,  and  many  of  them  are  excellently  printed 
on  excellent  paper. 

1.  Before  reading  a  Book,  etc ,  be  sure  to  think  out  the 
subject  first  for  yourself:  write  down  your  own  notion  as 
to  what  the  Book,  etc.,  should  tell  you,  how  it  should 
arrange  the  Ideas,  what  Comparisons  and  Contrasts  it 
should  use,  and  so  on.  Put  yourself  into  the  Writer's 
position  and  think  of  the  readers  for  whom  he  has 
written.  This  preparing  of  the  ground  is  absolutely 
indispensable. 

Then  read  the  Book  itself  I  think  that,  if  it  is  really 
worth  reading,  it  is  worth  reading  three  times. 

2.  For  the  first  tivie,  read  it  very  quickly,  so  as  to  get 
the  general  sense  and  drift ;  perhaps  the  quicker  you 
read  it  the  better,  just  as,  in  Drawing,  the  quicker  \ou 
do  the  outline,  the  more  correct  it  is  likely  to  be  as  an 
outline. 


354  HINTS  OiVcm  TO  RE  An 

3.  /;/  ilic  second  reading,  study  the  Ideas  more  in  detail. 
Chapter  I.,  for  example,  should  be  read  through  slowly  : 
the  Ideas  should  be  written  down  as  Headings  when 
you  have  finished  the  Chapter,  but  not  before.  Either 
an  ordinary  piece  of  paper  or  Cards  (p,  186)  may  be 
used ;  then  look  again  at  the  Book  and  fill  in  what 
you  have  omitted.  Write  out  the  Headings  once  more 
in  a  Note-book  of  your  own,  or  on  Cards. 

4.  It  is  important  to  write  these  Headings  under  one 
another,  and  not  consecutively,  and  to  leave  spaces 
between  them  so  that  you  may  add  fresh  Ideas  in  the 
future.  The  Headings  might  also  be  marked  i,  2,  3, 
a,  b,  c,  etc. 

5.  When  you  have  finished  Chapter  I.,  try  Chapter  II. 
in  the  same  way,  but,  before  you  begin  Chapter  II.,  read 
through  the  Headings  of  Chapter  I.,  or,  better  still,  first 
try  to  reproduce  them  for  yourself     Then,  after  Chapter 

II.  has  been  done,  proceed  to  Chapter  III.      Chapter 

III.  should  not  be  begun  until  the  Ideas  of  Chapters  I. 
and  II.  have  been  gone  through  again. 

6.  Continue  this  Re'suinee-vneihod,*  and  then,  before 
you  have  reached  Chapter  X.,  you  will  have  learnt 
Chapter  I. ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  Book  you  will  have 
learnt  practically  all  except  the  last  two  or  three 
Chapters,  and  these  can  now  be  learnt  in  a  very  few 
minutes. 

7.  During  this  reading,  notice  any  suggestive  pas- 
sages, and  make  notes  of  them,  either  on  Cards  or  in 
a  Note-book  ;  an  A  B  C  (Where  is  it  ?)  Note-book  is 
the  best.  Be  sure  to  give  references  to  the  original 
Book  and  its  pages.  These  Notes  should  include  notes 
on  good  subjects  for  Essays,  on  good   Ideas,  on  good 

*  See  "How  to  Remember"  (to  be  published  by  Warne  &  Co.). 


HOIV   TO   READ  355 

Illustrations,  etc.,  and    they  should   be  carefully  cata- 
logued or  arranged  at  intervals. 

8.  The  third  reading  should  again  be  a  slow  reading, 
and  in  this  you  should  study  the  Ideas  no  longer,  but 
rather  the  Expression  and  Style.  This  may  not  be 
perfect :  in  fact,  part  of  what  you  should  do  now  is 
to  criticise.  Throughout  this  reading  again  write 
Headings  on  Cards  or  in  your  Note-book,  and  write 
out  good  passages  under  their  various  Headings  (such 
as  Clearness,  and  Emphasis).  Try  to  imitate  these 
passages  in  your  own  writing.  As  to  how  to  find  out 
exactly  in  what  the  Style  consists,  see  page  211   foil. 

9.  From  what  has  been  said,  it  will  be  clear  that  as 
you  read,  at  any  rate  during  the  second  and  third 
readings,  you  should  keep  either  a  Note-book  or  paper 
or  Cards  by  your  side. 

10.  Nowadays,  also,  a  piece  of  advice  can  be  given 
which  would  not  have  been  so  much  in  place  years  ago, 
namely,  to  mark  the  Book,  if  the  marking  of  a  Book 
is  any  help  to  you ;  for  to-day  Books  are  so  cheap  that 
one  can  afford  to  mark  them.  By  marking  I  do  not 
merely  mean  underlining  or  adding  lines  at  the  side,  but 
I  mean  also  the  writing  of  marginal  notes  or  the  making 
of  notes  at  the  top  or  bottom  of  the  page.  Personall}-, 
I  write  a  great  many  notes  at  the  end  of  the  Book, 
making  references  to  the  pages.  Then,  at  intervals,  I 
classify  these.  For  very  important  works,  Interleaving 
is  a  good  thing  ;  such  a  work  as  Buckle's  "  Civilisation  " 
might  well  be  interleaved. 

11.  When  you  are  considering  the  Ideas,  and  their 
Arrangement,  and  the  Expression  and  Style,  do  not 
consider  them  ott/y  n'ith  a  vieiu  to  imitating  the  Writer. 
Imitation  (see  p.  2 19  foil.)  is  a  very  good  thing  if  you  wish 


356  HINTS  ON  COMPOSITION 

to  become  a  writer  of  parodies,  but  otherwise  it  is  apt 
to  be  a  mistake ;  for  you  will  be  very  liable  to  imitate 
the  eccentricities  rather  than  the  merits. 

12.  With  regard  to  the  notes  that  you  make,  you 
should  label  them  and  catalogue  them  and  as  it  were 
take  stock  of  tJiem,  at  intervals ;  and,  when  you  are  taking 
stock,  you  will  often  find  that  you  have  a  good  deal 
that  you  can  add.  Such  notes,  especially  if  they  are 
done  on  the  Card-system  (see  p.  i86)  will  be  of  the 
greatest  value  to  you. 

13.  [cp.  8.]  Do  not  be  afraid  of  criticising:  this  is 
important  to  remember.  Besides  this,  the  occasional 
criticism  of  Books  is  far  more  interesting  than  constant 
imitation :  it  gives  you  more  chance  of  working  inde- 
pendently. 

14.  Keep  a  list  of  the  Books  and  Articles  which  you 
read,  and  of  the  dates  at  which  you  read  them,  and 
perhaps  of  your  general  impression  of  them  ;  and  keep 
a  second  list  of  the  Books  etc.  which  you  ought  to 
read. 

15.  It  is  a  good  thing  to  read  a  little  every  day, 
keeping  the  lighter  works  for  after  meals  or  for  the 
short  time  before  you  go  to  sleep.  It  is  worth  while 
to  map  out  the  Books  etc.  according  to  the  time  of  da}!- 
to  which  they  will  be  most  suited  in  your  case.  Any- 
how, keep  as  great  a  variety  of  suggestions  as  you  can. 
This  is  essential  for  travelling.  Sir  John  Lubbock 
points  out  how  many  people  err  in  taking  a  single 
Book  for  a  long  journey ;  it  would  be  worth  while  to 
take  ten  minutes,  before  such  a  journey,  in  choosing 
what  half-dozen  books  it  would  be  best  to  take. 

16.  And  not  only  should  you  think  out  the  question 
for  yourself:  you  should  also  ask  for  advice. 

Above  all,  I  cannot  repeat  too  often  that  the  notes 


HO  IV  TO  READ  357. 

which  you  take  should  be  read  again  and  again  and  not 
merely  put  aside. 

Of  i/ie  advantages  of  Reading,  a  great  deal  has  been 
said  by  many  writers.  A  very  good  collection  of 
passages  referring  to  this  will  be  found  in  Mr.  Shaylor's 
excellent  little  book  on  'The  Pleasures  of  Literature'. 
He  gives  quotations  from  many  writers. 

And  as  to  tJie  best  Books  for  reading,  the  New  Testa- 
ment, the  Speeches  of  Demosthenes  (in  English),  and 
the  Speeches  of  Burke,  may  be  among  the  most  useful 
for  anyone  who  wishes  to  study  Style  and  (see  p.  299) 
the  artifices  of  Style  and  '  Persuasion  '.  As  to  the  best 
Books  for  subject-matter,  those  are  best  which  suggest 
most :  for  instance  Buckle's  "  History  of  Civilisation  in 
England "  would  be  good  for  this  reason,  that  it  sets 
one  thinking  and  makes  one  work  out  ideas  for  oneself 
For  the  same  reason  one  could  recommend  Stout's 
"  Psychology ",  Hogarth's  "  Philip  and  Alexander  of 
IMacedon ",  Cunningham's  "Western  Civilisation,"  and 
hundreds  of  other  well-known  works.  The  lists  of 
"The  Hundred  Best  Books"  will  suggest  others. 


CHAPTER  LXIX.     HOW  TO  LEAEN  FROM 

LECTURES,  SPEECHES,  ETC. 


It  is  a  great  mistake  to  listen  to  a  Lecture  or  Speech 
ivithoHt  previous  preparation,  for  in  such  a  case  it  will  be 
like  sowing  on  ground  that  is  not  ready  for  the  seed. 

A  second  great  mistake  is  to  write  dozvn  every  zvord 
whicJi  is  said,  and  afterivards  never  to  look  at  the  7iotes 
again;  this  mistake  is  very  common  at  Schools  and  at 
the  Universities  :   I  have  many  such  note-books ! 

Still  further,  it  is  a  great  mistake  to  write  down  the 
Ideas,  or  to  listen  to  them  without  writing  them  down, 
and  then  never  try  to  reproduce  or  apply  them  afterwards. 

The  great  difficulty  and  problem  is  this.  If  at  a 
Lecture  I  write  down  what  I  hear,  I  shall  not  be  able 
to  attend  properly ;  if  I  attend  properly,  I  shall  not  be 
able  to  write  down  what  I  hear.  The  difficulty  is  solved 
if  the  Lecturer  or  Speaker,  e.g.  after  the  Lecture  is  over, 
presents  his  hearers  with  a  Scheme  or  Syllabus  of  the 
subject-matter.  But  {q.\\  are  energetic  enough  to  do 
this,  and  as  a  rule  the  listener  has  to  do  what  he  can,  all 
by  himself. 

The  following  piece  of  advice  is  most  important. 

As  with  reading,  so  here,  tJie  subject  mnst  be  zvorked 
out  beforehand.  What  will  the  Lecturer  say?  how  will 
he  Arrange  his  ideas?  what  Illustrations  and  Contrasts 
will  he  use  ?  how  will  he  begin  the  Lecture,  and  how 
will  he  end  it  ? 

358 


HO IV  TO  LEARN  FROM  LECTURES,   ETC.      359 

The  advantages  of  working  this  out  beforehand  are 
almost  too  obvious  to  need  mention.  When  the  Lecture 
comes,  it  will  be  of  far  greater  interest  to  you  ;  it  will 
have  given  you  a  chance  of  working  out  the  subject  for 
yourself,  that  is  to  say,  a  chance  of  originality  and  self- 
activity.  And  not  only  this,  but  the  ground  will  have 
been  prepared  :  you  will  have  a  smaller  number  of  Ideas 
to  pay  attention  to,  and  to  absorb  and  assimilate.  Your 
power  of  criticism  will  undoubtedly  be  improved,  and, 
if  by  any  chance  you  have  thought  of  a  number  of 
good  Ideas  which  the  Lecturer  has  not  mentioned,  you 
will  gradually  acquire  more  and  more  confidence  in 
your  own  powers,  and  you  will  be  greatly  encouraged 
to  go  through  the  same  labour  again. 

When  the  Lecture  begins,  either  jot  down  the  Ideas 
at  the  time,  and  try  to  reproduce  them  afterwards,  and 
then  correct  and  re-write  (in  your  Note-book  or  on 
Cards)  what  you  have  tried  to  reproduce,  or  else  write 
down  nothing  at  the  time,  and  try  to  reproduce  the 
Ideas  afterwards;  most  of  this  latter  reproduction  might 
be  corrected  afterwards  either  by  a  Book  or  Books,  which 
are  sure  to  contain  most  of  the  Lecturer's  Ideas,  or  by  a 
report  in  a  newspaper,  or  by  a  friend's  notes,  etc. 

The  third  method,  which  is  especially  valuable  if  you 
can  take  Shorthand  notes,  is  to  write  down  the  Lecture 
word  for  word,  and  then  to  copy  it  out  afterwards  and 
read  it  as  a  Book  or  Essay. 

]\Iuch  will  depend  of  course  upon  how  good  the 
Lecture  is,  and  on  how  important  the  subject  is. 


CHAPTER   LXX.     GENERAL  HINTS  AND  HELPS. 


The  reader  should  consult  the  Chapters  on  "  How  to 
Learn"  (pp.  23,  358),  and  "  How  to  Practise"  (p.  347). 

1.  For  the  Collection  of  Ideas  a  very  great  help  is  a 
knowledge  of  History,  and  not  only  of  its  main  features 
but  also  of  certain  Periods  in  detail ;  and  a  knowledge 
of  Biography  is  invaluable  :  such  men  as  Watt  and 
Carey  and  Algernon  Sidney  are  well  worth  following 
through  their  career. 

2.  Of  more  general  subjects,  Sociology  and  Science  may 
be  mentioned,  but  it  is  of  little  use  to  read  these  sub- 
jects in  the  wrong  way  (see  p.  352)  :  they  must  be  read 
with  very  careful  observation,  and  must  be  thought  over 
beforehand,  and  thought  over  and  reproduced  afterwards. 

3.  An  occasional  7valk  in  the  country  or  in  a  town  may 
be  made  a  very  useful  means  of  Collecting  or  Revising 
Ideas :  see  for  instance  the  Chapter  on  "  Comparisons  " 
(p.  288).  It  will  also  secure  that  very  important  element, 
change. 

4.  In  fact,  the  subject  should  be  cJianged  directly  one 
begins  to  feel  tired,  and  great  care  should  be  taken  to 
apportion  the  special  subjects  to  the  special  times  at 
which  you  can  do  them  best.  Keep  the  easiest  subjects 
for  the  times  when  you  feel  least  inclined  for  work. 

5.  The  memory  should  be  carefully  cultivated  and 
exercised  (see  "  PTow  to  Remember ",  to  be  published 
by  Warne  &  Co.) ;  for  without  a  good  memory  your 
Compositions  will  be  pretty  certain  to  fail. 

360 


GENERAL  HINTS  AND  HELPS  3*3 ' 

6.  Memory  in  its  turn  depends  largely  upon  health,  so 
that  health  should  be  a  very  important  consideration 
for  Essay-Writers  and  Speakers. 

7.  Without  health  it  is  almost  impossible  for  most 
people  to  concentrate  and  focus  their  attention  for  long 
periods  of  time  together,  and  we  have  found  that,  in 
order  to  succeed,  the  Writer  or  Speaker  imist  focus  his 
attention  not  only  on  the  work  as  a  whole  but  on  each 
of  its  parts  in  turn. 

8.  Moreover,  it  requires  very  great  effort  of  zvill  to 
keep  the  general  Idea  of  the  Essay  in  the  mind  at  the 
same  time  that  one  is  attending  to  each  part. 

9.  Another  help  towards  this  concentration  is  Interest. 
Of  Interest  we  have  already  spoken  on  page  255  :  the 
preparation  of  the  Composition  will  have  far  more 
Interest  if  one  takes  a  little  trouble  about  such  things 
as  timing  oneself  (e.g.  seeing  how  long  it  takes  to  write 
an  Essay  of  3000  words),  or  if  one  keeps  records  of 
improvement,  or  if  one  asks  for  criticism  from  others, 
and  so  on.  With  a  little  care  the  work  may  become 
very  interesting  for  many  reasons. 

10.  Practice,  again,  we  have  seen  to  be  quite  essential 
to  progress,  that  is  to  say  if  at  first  it  be  correct  and  slow, 
and  if  it  be  persisted  in  ;  it  is  essential,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  the  success  may  not  be  immediate.  One  of 
the  best  kinds  of  Practice  is  Precis-Writing  (p.  183):  it 
can  be  done  by  the  "  Card-System  ". 

1 1.  Another  form  of  Practice  is  to  take  passages,  and  first 
of  all  to  analyse  them  and  find  the  Ideas  they  contain, 
and  the  way  in  which  those  Ideas  are  Arranged,  and 
then  (p.  211)  to  find  the  peculiarities  of  Style.  In  fact 
any  good  passage  should  not  only  be  read,  but  should 
also  be  analysed  in  this  way,  so  that  whatever  is  good 
may  be  found  and  noted. 


362  HINTS   ON  COMPOSITION 

12.  But  many  passages  will  not  be  nearly  as  useful  as 
they  might  be,  unless  you  read  them  aloud. 

13.  It  is  a  good  thing  to  take  a  general  subject  (like 
'Slavery',  or  'Athletics')  and  first  of  all  to  do  it  with 
the  '  General  Essay  Headings '  (p.  92),  and  then  to  treat 
some  one  of  these  Headings  (e.g.  '  Changes ',  or  '  Re- 
sults')  as  a  separate  Essay  all  by  itself.  For  this  the 
Period-Headings  (p.  83)  will  be  of  use. 

14.  In  the  Composition  it  may  be  useful  to  put  in  a 
few  simple  Diagrams  or  Maps  :  this  is  very  seldom  done 
in  ordinary  Essays,  and  yet  how  often  we  see  an  Essay 
or  Article  in  which  a  simple  little  Diagram  would 
explain  an  Idea  far  more  fully  than  a  whole  page  of 
description.  At  any  rate  during  the  preparing  of  many 
Compositions  such  Diagrams  are  indispensable. 

15.  Whether  or  no  one  should  zvrite  an  Analysis  in  the 
margin  of  the  Composition,  or  should  give  a  separate 
ScJieme  quite  apart  from  the  Composition  itself,  is  a 
question  which  has  often  been  discussed  (see  p.  314). 
There  are  many  who  say  that  the  plain  Essay  should 
appear  without  any  running  Analysis  in  the  margin, 
and  without  any  Scheme.  I  think  this  is  quite  wrong, 
because  the  Analysis  certainly  helps  those  who  wish 
to  refer  to  any  particular  part  again,  and  the  Scheme 
helps  those  who  wish  to  rush  very  quickly  through  the 
whole  Composition  again ;  and  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
people  do  not  want  the  Analysis  or  the  Scheme,  they 
are  quite  at  liberty  to  take  no  notice  of  it* 

16.  This  piece  of  advice  is  part  of  a  more  general 
principle,  namely,  adapt  yourself  to  the  larger  number 

•  With  regard  to  printed  Books,  etc.,  it  may  be  noted  tliat  the  (indented) 
running  Analysis  in  the  Margin  is  a  very  expen.sive  item,  though  un- 
doubtedly a  wonderful  help  to  the  reader. 


GENERAL  HINTS  AND  HELPS  363 

of   readers    or   hearers,   and    especially   to    those   who 
demand  most. 

Let  your  Essay  be  clear  for  the  benefit  of  the  ignorant 
and  unlitcrary  ;  let  it  be  short  and  interesting  for  the 
benefit  of  the  lazy  and  unenthusiastic ;  let  it  be  correct 
and  polished  to  satisfy  the  scholars  and  pedants,  and 
let  it  have  in  it  some  personal  elements  to  satisfy 
the  young — and  females.  And  perhaps  let  it  have  a 
little  flattery  in  it  to  satisfy  nearly  everyone  :  for  in- 
tance  (see  p.  257)  "the  sensible  reader  must  be  aware 
that  .  .  .". 

17.  When  the  Essay  is  done,  it  must  be  revised  once 
or  twice  at  least,  after  an  interval  if  possible.    See  p.  330. 

1 8.  Above  all  things,  ttever  over-economise  in  paper, 
because  paper  is  as  a  rule  cheaper  than  time  and 
labour. 

19.  The  need  of  a  change  of  subject  has  already  been 
mentioned.  There  is  also  need  of  another  change— a 
change  of  position :  you  should  read  a  good  deal 
standing  instead  of  sitUng.  I  believe  that  certain 
subjects  are  best  read  while  one  is  actually  lying  down. 
Another  change  will  be  to  read  out  loud  (see  p.  307),  at 
first  very  distinctly  and  carefully. 


Part  V. 


PART    V.    HINTS   ON   WRITING   FOR   THE   PRESS, 
SPEAKING,    AND   LETTER-WRITING. 


CHAPTERS  PAGS 

LXXI.    Hints    on    Writing    for    the    Press, 

Correcting  Proofs,  and  Index-Making.  367 

LXXI  I.    Speaking            .               .              ...  3S4 

LXXI  II.    Letter-Writing              .               »           .        .  39^* 


CHAPTER  LXXT.     HINTS   ON   WRITING 
FOR    THE   PRESS, 
CORRECTING   PROOFS, 
AND    INDEX-MAKING. 


In  tlie  first  place,  there  should  be  no  economy  of  paper. 
It  is  one  of  the  greatest  mistakes  that  Writers  make,  to 
waste  an  hour  of  time  so  as  to  save  a  farthing's  worth 
of  paper.  Time  is  worth  more  than  a  farthing  an  hour, 
at  any  rate  to  most  of  my  readers. 

In  Writing  for  the  Press,  the  methods  which  I  have 
already  described  (p.  36)  should  always  be  used. 
Especial  care  should  be  taken  over  the  ScJienie  and  its 
arrangement. 

After  the  Scheme  has  once  been  prepared,  a  long 
interval  should  be  left.  Supposing  that  the  Scheme  is 
done  on  the  Card-System  (see  p.  186),  then  put  aside 
these  Cards  for  let  us  say  a  week.  They  should  be  put 
where  they  can  easily  be  got  at  and  added  to.  During 
the  week  the  subject  will  be  (often  unconsciously)  turned 
over  and  over  in  your  mind,  and  at  the  end  of  the  week 
you  will  have  certain  additions,  corrections,  and  altera- 
tions. 

When  the  Composition  has  been  written  out  or  Tj-pe- 
written,  you  should  (after  the  interval)  criticise  it  part 
by  part :  that  is  to  sa\',  you  should  criticise  the  Ideas 
and  their  Arrangement  etc.  by  the  Scheme  itself;  you 
should  criticise  the  Expression  and  Style  b}-  the  ICssay 
or  Article ;  and  then  you  should  criticise  the  Rluthm 


368        HINTS   ON   WRITING  FOR    THE  PRESS 

separately ;  reading  aloud  is  almost  the  only  means  of 
doing  this. 

Unpleasant  though  it  may  be,  yet  ike  criticism  of  a 
friend^  or  (better  still)  of  an  enemy,  is  invaluable :  there 
is  scarcely  one  person  in  a  thousand  who  can  look  at 
his  own  productions  with  an  unbiassed  eye.  As  the 
mother  is  wont  to  think  all  her  children  quite  perfect, 
and  will  not  be  convinced  that  they  have  any  faults,  so 
the  Writer  is  apt  to  think  his  own  Writings  perfect.  It 
is  only  a  second  person  who  has  the  power  of  criticism ; 
and,  the  more  critics  you  can  get,  the  better  it  will  be. 

When  criticism  has  been  offered,  it  should  not  neces- 
sarily be  accepted  and  acted  on,  but  at  any  rate  it 
should  be  considered  with  an  open  mind,  and  the 
suggestions  should  be  noted  down  for  future  use,  for 
instance  in  an  'ABC  Note-book.  In  the  same  way 
you  should  make  notes  of  any  suggestions  by  Editors 
or  Publishers,  though  unfortunately  they  are  not  easy  to 
get.  I  suppose  the  Editors  or  Publishers  dread  a  long 
letter  of  self-defence. 

When  an  Article  or  Book  has  been  written,  it  must  be 
type-written  before  it  is  sent  to  the  Editor  or  Publisher, 
that  is  to  say,  unless  it  has  been  ordered  beforehand  or 
unless  you  are  well  known.  The  reason  is  not  simply 
that  Type-writing  looks  better  than  ordinary  writing, 
and  that  it  is  easier  to  read,  but  it  actually  is  a  fact  that 
few  Editors  or  Publishers  will  read  anything  that  is  not 
Type-written.  It  is  much  to  be  lamented  for  many 
reasons,  but  still  it  is  a  fact  to  be  remembered. 

Yet  Type-writing  has  more  advantages  when  one  looks 
into  the  matter :  it  is  fairly  cheap,  of  course  far  cheaper 
than  print ;  and  it  gives  a  fair  idea  of  what  the  work  will 
look  like  when  it  is  in  print.     It  is  seldom  remembered 


HINTS   ON   WRITING  FOR    THE  PRESS        369 

that  there  is  a  great  distinction  between  a  thing  which 
is  heard,  and  a  thing  which  is  read  in  ordinary  writing, 
and  a  thing  which  is  read  in  print.  In  fact  these  differ- 
ences almost  necessitate  certain  differences  in  Style. 
Now  Type-writing  is  far  nearer  to  print  than  ordinary 
writing  is. 

But  this  is  not  all,  for  Type-writing,  if  done  by  some 
other  person,  ensures  an  interval  during  which  new  Ideas 
may  occur  to  you.  Without  such  an  interval  it  is  quite 
possible  that  the  work  would  have  been  sent  straight  off 
to  the  Publisher  in  an  unready  condition ;  after  it  had 
been  sent,  you  would  think  of  something  that  you  would 
wish  to  alter.  Very  few  have  the  strength  of  mind  to 
keep  back  for  a  whole  week  a  piece  of  Writing  which 
they  have  finished.  Type- writing  sometimes  necessitates 
this  interval,  or  at  any  rate  a  certain  interval. 

A  novice  who  has  written  anything  for  a  Publisher  or 
Editor  must  be  prepared  to  wait:  a  novice  has  not  the 
smallest  conception  of  how  long  the  waiting  may  be. 
A  short  time  ago  I  sent  an  Article  (with  a  stamped  and 
addressed  envelope)  to  a  certain  Editor:  not  hearing 
from  him  for  a  few  weeks,  I  wrote  and  enclosed  another 
stamped  and  addressed  envelope,  and  asked  him  to  send 
me  a  word  to  say  if  there  were  any  chance  of  his  accept- 
ing the  Article.  After  three  such  letters  (each  very 
polite  and  with  its  envelope),  I  eventually  received  my 
Article  back  ;  the  Editor  said  that  if  1  had  been  content 
to  wait  for  a  little  (this  was  after  five  weeks),  he  would 
have  put  the  Article  in  !     This  delay  is  not  exceptional. 

Another  Article  I  sent  to  a  Paper,  and  after  tu'enty 
weeks,  and  after  many  letters  (which  enclosed  stamped 
and  addressed  envelopes),  I  was  told  that  the  Article 
was  unsuitable  for  the  Paper. 
2   B 


370        HINTS   ON   IIT/T/NG  FOR    THE  PRESS 

The  reader  must  not  think  that  these  are  at  all  unique 
cases.  The  other  day  a  friend  told  me  that  a  well- 
known  Editor  had  kept  an  Article  of  his  for  three  years, 
and  had  then  offered  to  exchange  it  for  another  (perhaps 
because  it  was  no  longer  up  to  date). 

Therefore,  even  if  you  write  the  politest  letter  in  the 
world,  and  enclose  a  stamped  envelope  for  reply,  you 
must  not  expect  to  have  an  answer  for  some  weeks  or 
months  or  even  for  a  year  or  more. 

There  is  some  excuse  for  the  Editor  whose  numbers 
have  to  be  prepared  weeks  and  months  beforehand  : 
spaces  are  left,  it  is  true,  but  these  are  either  for  special 
topics  of  the  day,  or  for  Articles  by  regular  Contributors. 
Moreover  masses  of  contributions  are  wont  to  be  sent  in 
daily. 

But  in  my  opinion  nothing  can  excuse  the  laziness  of 
a  great  number  of  Editors.  When  the  Writers  are 
poor  and  have  staked  a  great  deal  on  their  Writings, 
then  the  laziness  is  simply  disgusting :  in  fact,  it  amounts 
to  cruelty.  It  is  concerned  with  some  of  the  very 
saddest  tragedies  that  the  world  has  ever  seen,  and 
I  only  mention  it  because  it  is  very  common  and  be- 
cause it  is  as  well  that  the  novice  should  know  what  to 
expect. 

The  following  point  is  very  little  considered,  but  still 
its  consideration  might  have  saved  thousands  of  disap- 
pointments. TJie  right  Editor  or  Publisher  should  be 
selected.  The  Writer  whose  best  work  has  been  once  or 
twice  refused  is  apt  to  despair,  but  the  reason  is  not 
always  that  the  work  is  bad.  I  would  not  for  a  moment 
encourage  worthless  Writers,  but  at  the  same  time  it  is 
as  well  that  a  Writer  should  be  given  every  chance. 
Putting  aside  the  laziness  of  the  Reader  or  Publisher, 


HINTS   ON   WRITING  FOR    THE  PRESS        371 

or  his  bias  in  favour  of  the  most  orthodox  and  cus- 
tomary views,  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  (Reader  or) 
Editor  or  PubHsher  may  be  of  the  wrong  kind  for  your 
particular  work.  Your  work  may  be  on  a  subject  which 
he  does  not  care  for,  perhaps  on  a  subject  outside  his 
'line'.  For  Publishers  have  lines.  Or  it  may  be  too 
long,  01  too  short,  or  the  subject  may  not  be  treated 
according  to  his  views  of  what  is  right.  I  have  found 
that  what  one  Publisher  has  rejected  with  scorn  or  even 
with  abuse,  another  (and  perhaps  even  a  superior) 
Publisher  has  actually  welcomed.  Possibly  the  second 
Publisher  is  less  wise  than  the  first :  but  the  point 
which  I  wish  to  emjDhasisc  is  that  he  may  accept  what 
the  first  has  rejected.  This  has  held  good  not  once 
only  within  my  own  experience,  but  many  times.  In 
the  case  of  one  of  my  works  it  was  refused  at  first  by 
an  inferior  Publisher,  then  by  a  better  Publisher,  then 
by  a  still  better  Publisher,  and  then  by  a  still  better 
Publisher,  and  was  finally  accepted  by  one  who  stood 
very  near  the  top  of  the  list ! 

For  this  reason,  and  because  no  Writer  can  be  ex- 
pected to  know  what  particular  Publisher  or  Editor 
will  be  likely  to  accept  his  work,  I  should  suggest  the 
advantage  of  a  good  Agent.  Not  only  does  he  save 
)'ou  bother,  but  he  may  save  you  time,  and  disappoint- 
ment. Instead  of  }'our  offering  the  work  to  ten  people, 
he  will  say  at  once  "  This  is  something  for  A  or  B  ;  if 
neither  of  these  two  will  accept  it,  probably  no  one 
will." 

As  to  the  sending  of  your  Manuscript,  you  should  ha\-e 
on  it  your  name  and  address,  and  the  Number  of  Words 
(this  is  very  important),  and  the  Date.  The  Manu- 
script, as  we  have  said,  should   be  Type-written,  and 


3/2        HINTS   ON   WRITING  FOR   THE  PRESS 

should  be  paged,  and  the  pages  should  be  fastened 
together ;  the  whole  should  be  carefully  packed,  and 
with  it  should  be  sent  a  stamped  envelope  addressed  to 
yourself,  so  that  the  receiver  may  return  it  if  he  will.  If 
you  write  a  letter  to  the  Publisher,  let  it  be  very  very 
short :  do  not  write  an  Autobiography. 

Though  I  believe  it  is  not  often  done,  still  it  is  ex- 
tremely useful  to  send  a  Scheme  of  the  work  with  the 
work  itself,  so  that  the  Reader  can  see  at  a  glance,  not 
only  the  subject  of  the  work,  but  also  the  way  in  which 
the  subject  is  treated. 

In  fact,  probably  numbers  of  Editors  would  be  glad 
to  receive,  in  the  first  instance,  a  Scheme  along  with 
perhaps  one  paragraph  or  two  as  a  specimen  of  the 
St}'le  of  the  whole.  With  the  Editor's  (real  or  imaginary) 
pressure  of  work,  this  may  save  many  minutes.  The 
Scheme  and  the  specimen  together  might  be  two  pages, 
instead  of  perhaps  fifteen  for  an  Article,  or  two  or  three 
hundred  for  a  book.  You  could  write,  with  them,  a 
short  note  to  this  effect : — 

Dear  Sir, 

I  enclose  a  Sclieiiie  and  a  specimen.  Are  you 
likely  to  accept  the  ivork,  provided  that  it  is  done  to  your 
satisfaction,  and  on  the  lines  slunun  in  the  Scheme^  and 
provided  that  it  has  about  [3000]  words  ?  If  not,  could 
you  suggest  any  alteration  wJiich  might  incline  you  to 
accept  it? 

The  great  advantage  of  this  will  be  the  saving  of  time 
for  you,  as  a  Writer :  and  the  saving  of  trouble  and  of 
disappointment,  and  also  of  expense,  if  the  work  is 
going  to  be  Type -written ;   the  waste  of  money  and 


HINTS   ON   WRITING   FOR   THE  PRESS        373 

time  are  chiefly  to  be  considered  in  case  the  work  should 
not  be  eventually  accepted.  It  is  needless  to  say  that 
you  will  save  the  Reader  a  great  deal  of  time  and 
trouble,  and  Readers  (being  human)  will  be  likely  to  be 
pleased  if  you  do  this  for  them. 

The  chief  merit  of  the  method  is  this.  The  Reader  will 
easily  judge  of  the  Ideas,  and  of  their  Arrangement,  by 
the  Scheme  which  you  send,  and  of  the  Style  and  Ex- 
pression by  the  specimen  which  you  send.  If  he  is  likely 
to  accept  the  work  at  all,  he  will  be  just  as  likely  to 
accept  it  when  he  sees  the  Scheme,  as  when  he  sees 
the  whole  work  without  the  Scheme — in  fact,  far  more 
so. 

There  is  another  reason  also.  W'hen  you  have  sent 
your  work,  and  before  you  receive  an  answer,  there  is 
sure  to  be  an  interval :  it  may  be  only  a  few  days,  it 
may  be  many  months.  During  that  time,  your  views 
and  ideas  are  more  than  likely  to  change.  Supposing 
you  have  only  sent  the  Scheme,  and  in  fact  have  only 
done  the  Scheme,  then  it  will  be  very  easy  to  add  to  or 
alter  that  Scheme.  But,  if  the  whole  work  has  been 
already  written  out,  it  will  be  very  tiresome  to  have  to 
add  to  it  or  alter  it.  While  to  alter  the  Scheme  would 
take  perhaps  only  two  minutes,  to  alter  the  work  itself 
might  take  as  long  as  two  hours. 

In  Writing  for  the  Press,  the  length  of  the  work  is  of 
very  great  importance.  An  Editor  is  little  likely  to 
accept  an  Article  of  ten  thousand  words,  and  the 
present  tendency  is  for  Articles,  and  for  Books,  to  be- 
come shorter  and  shorter.  As  we  said,  the  length  of  the 
work  should  always  be  quoted  as  so  many  Words.  The 
best  way  is  to  count  the  number  of  words  in  a  line, 
taking  an  average  of  say  fifty  lines  ;  and  then  to  count 


374        f/TNTS   ON   WETTING  FOR   THE   PRESS 

the  number  of  lines  on  a  page  (in  Type-writing  they  will 
generally  be  the  same  number) ;  and  then  to  count  the 
number  of  full  pages ;  by  this  means,  multiplying  the 
average  number  of  words  in  a  line  by  the  number  of 
lines,  you  will  get  the  number  of  Words  quite  near 
enough  for  practical  purposes. 

The  Title  of  the  work  is  almost  of  more  importance 
than  even  the  Beginning  of  it  (p.  258),  though  that  of 
course  is  itself  a  part  that  is  worth  much  time  and 
attention.  The  Ending  is  more  difficult  than  the  Be- 
ginning, but  possibly  it  is  not  always  of  so  great  im- 
portance. When  you  Write,  you  must  constantly  take 
account  of  the  rapidity  with  which  your  work  is  likely 
to  be  read  ;  we  might  almost  say  not  only  the  rapidity 
but  even  the  carelessness.  If  you  were  an  Editor  and 
wanted  to  judge  of  a  Composition  within  two  minutes, 
you  would  consider  three  things :  the  Title  first,  the 
Beginning  second,  and  the  Ending  third.  By  the  first 
two  (and  perhaps  the  Illustrations)  people  are  wont  to 
choose  Novels.  For  one  Book  which  I  wrote  I  had  to 
suggest  nearly  twenty  Titles  before  I  could  get  one  that 
would  satisfy  the  Publisher.  The  Publisher,  as  I  now 
realise,  was  perfectly  right. 

A  few  details  may  be  of  use.  You  should  keep  an 
abundant  supply  of  good  paper  and  of  paper-fasteners ; 
your  Cover  should  be  carefully  prepared ;  and  the  paper 
itself  should  have  wide  margins. 

One  or  two  words  may  be  said  about  Dictation.  Some 
statistics  as  to  time  are  given  on  page  191.  If  you  can 
afford  to  dictate  and  to  have  the  notes  Type-written  after- 
wards, you  may  be  able  to  do  the  work  in  perhaps  otie- 
sixtJi  of  the  titne ;  and  the  advantage  is  not  only  this 
saving  of  hours  and  hours,  and  the  saving  of  the  (almost 


///NTS   ON   WRITING   FOR    THE   PRESS        375 

mechanical)  drudgery  of  copying  out  notes,  but  it  is 
also  most  excellent  practice  for  the  Speaker.  To  have 
notes  before  one,  merely  consisting  of  Headings  (p.  63 
foil.),  and  to  be  able  to  turn  those  Headings  at  once  into 
Sentences,  at  the  rate  of  as  many  as  six  thousand  words 
an  hour,  must  not  only  improve  your  mastery  of  lan- 
guage, but  must  also  help  you  to  express  yourself  at  a 
moment's  notice  (for  instance  in  an  after-dinner  Speech 
or  in  a  Debate).  Besides  this,  many  i,-ealise  their  faults 
and  failings  better  when  they  arc  speaking  out  loud  to 
another,  than  when  they  are  writing  on  paper. 

The  Phonograph  is  to  be  recommended,  but  there  is 
a  certain  amount  of  mechanical  work  in  attending  to  it. 

If  you  wish  to  decide  whether  it  is  worth  your  while 
to  dictate  to  a  Shorthand-writer,  or  whether  you  ought 
rather  to  \\rite  out  the  work  for  yourself,  you  will  have 
to  consider  hoiv  much  your  time  is  ivorth  per  hour.  If 
your  time  brings  in,  let  us  say,  ten  shillings  an  hour,  and 
if  the  dictation  for  one  single  hour  will  cost  five  shillings 
and  will  save  you  five  hours  of  mechanical  work,  then  I 
unhesitatingly  say  '  Dictate'.  It  is  true  that  you  will  be 
spending  five  shillings,  but  you  will  be  saving  five  hours, 
which  will  mean  the  possibility  of  earning  fifty  shillings. 
If  you  have  very  little  time  to  spare,  and  very  much 
money,  then  by  all  means  dictate. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  you  have  a  great  deal  of  time 
to  spare,  but  very  little  money,  then  write  out  the  whole 
thing  for  yourself,  or  Type-write  it  if  you  can. 

It  is  left  for  each  reader  to  find  out  the  right  mean 
between  the  two  extremes — that  is  to  say,  to  find  out 
whether  his  time  is  more  valuable  to  him  than  his 
money.  The  question  is  one  that  is  well  worth  a  very 
careful  calculation. 


376        HINTS  ON   WRITING  FOR    THE  TRESS 


Why  Publishers  etc.  do  not  accept 
Compositions. 

When  a  Composition  is  not  accepted,  it  may  be  the 
fault  of  the  Author  (or  perhaps  of  his  Agent),  or  it 
may  be  the  fault  of  the  Publisher  (or  of  his  Reader). 
Or,  again,  the  fault  may  lie  with  both  parties,  or  the 
fault  may  lie  with  no  one  at  all. 

Supposing  the  Composition  itself  is  bad  (I  use  the 
word  '  bad '  in  its  widest  sense),  supposing  it  has  bad 
Ideas,  is  badly  written,  badly  Arranged,  badly  Expressed, 
and  so  on,  or  supposing  it  is  too  long,  or  supposing 
it  is  not  in  the  Publisher's  'line' — for  Publishers  have 
'  lines ' — then  the  fault  may  lie  with  the  Author  (or  with 
his  Agent). 

But  the  fault  may  lie  with  the  Publisher  or  Reader, 
supposing  that  the  work  is  not  looked  at  or  is  not  read 
(and  this  is  the  case  occasionally),  or  supposing  it  is  read 
carelessly,  or  supposing  it  is  read  carefully  but  the 
Reader  refuses  to  open  his  mind  as  it  were,  or  supposing 
(as  I  have  known  to  be  the  case  once  or  twice)  the 
Publisher  or  Reader  has  some  personal  prejudice,  or 
takes  offence  at  something  that  is  said. 

Supposing  again  that  the  Publisher  or  his  Reader 
expects  that  the  work  will  not  sell,  then  the  fault  may 
be  a  fault  of  judgment,  but  anyhow  it  is  not  always  one 
for  which  the  Publisher  or  Reader  are  to  be  blamed. 
Thousands  of  gross  errors  have  been  made  for  this 
reason,  and  many  of  them  may  be  put  down  to  the 
fact  that  (unwilling  as  one  is  to  say  it)  Publishers  and 


///NTS   Oy  CORRECT/NG  PROO/'S  377 

their  Readers  have  seldom  received  the  right  kind  of 
education  to  fit  them  for  their  task.  The  education  for 
such  a  task  shoukl  be  of  the  very  widest  kind,  and  yet 
of  the  most  special  kind.  I  do  not  think  that  England 
at  present  offers  any  such  education. 

Where  the  fault  lies,  when  the  Writer  has  not  yet  won 
a  name,  is  very  doubtful,  for  the  Publisher  can  hardly 
be  expected  to  publish  a  work  which  he  thinks  that 
no  one  will  read,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  work  itself 
may  be  well  worth  reading,  especially  if  its  '  public'  can 
be  found. 

It  is  no  one's  fault  if  the  Publisher  has  no  time  to 
publish ;  his  year's  List  may  be  quite  full  already. 


Hints  on  Correcting  Proofs. 

To  begin  with,  one  may  say  that  there  should  be 
some  clear  understanding,  or  rather  some  written  Agrec- 
;y/<;;//,  between  the  Writer  and  the  Publisher,  stating  how 
much  per  sheet  (of  16  pages)  the  Author  is  to  be 
allowed  for  Corrections:  it  may  be  4^".,  for  instance.  For, 
on  the  one  hand,  it  is  ridiculous  that  the  Author  should 
never  be  allowed  to  see  his  proofs  at  all  (this  was 
the  case  with  one  Article  of  mine)  ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  still  more  ridiculous  that  the  Author  should 
be  allowed  to  make  Corrections  which  amount  to  two 
or  three  hundred  pounds,  as  I  believe  was  the  case  with 
a  certain  well-known  work.  The  Corrections  were  not 
only  huge  but  also  extremely  silly  ;  evidently  the  book 
had  been  carelessly  prepared.  A  couple  of  perusals 
of  the  MS.  may  save  pounds  of  expense  in  Corrections. 


378        HINTS   ON   WRITING  FOR   THE  PRESS 

A  great  deal  of  trouble  I  have  found  to  be  saved, 
if,  with  the  Manuscript,  there  are  sent  instructions  to  the 
Printer,  pointing  out,  for  instance,  how  the  Type  should 
be  altered,  and  that  Capital  Letters  should  be  put  in 
where  they  occur  in  the  MSS  !  But  anyhow  the  Author 
should  notice  where  the  Proof  differs  from  his  Manu- 
script :  he  can  hardly  be  called  upon  to  pay  for  any 
Corrections  of  this  kind. 

Much  has  to  be  left  to  the  Publisher.  But,  if  there 
are  going  to  be  heavy  Corrections,  the  Author  should 
suggest  that  he  should  have  the  Proof  in  'Slips' 
before  he  has  it  in  pages.  The  expense  of  heavily 
correcting  print  when  it  is  in  Slips  is  very  much  less 
than  that  of  correcting  print  when  it  is  in  pages.  For, 
if  you  add  three  lines  to  one  page,  that  will  affect  the 
following  pages — perhaps  as  many  as  1 5  pages.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  turning  of  Slips  into  pages  is  itself  a 
very  expensive  process. 

In  these  Slips  always  ask  for  wide  Margins,  for 
the  printers  have  no  right  to  economise  in  paper  : 
the  paper  of  their  Proofs  is  often  quite  inferior  enough 
already. 

When  the  Proofs  come,  look  through  them  im- 
mediately, especially  if  they  come  in  Slips;  but  do  not 
send  them  back  at  once ;  if  you  can,  keep  them  for  a 
day  or  two,  or  even  for  a  week,  especially  if  you  are 
going  to  look  through  them  only  once :  the  Punctuation 
alone  may  require  a  separate  reading. 

The  following  remarks  may  be  commonplaces  to  a 
great  many  of  my  readers,  but  I  feel  bound  to  mention 
them  here. 

Write  in  ink,  unless  your  pencil  is  very  black. 

Learn   and   practise  very  carefully,  one  by  one,  the 


HINTS   ON  CORRECTING  PROOFS 


379 


different  siq;ns  for  changes.  Underlining  a  word  or 
words  means  italics ;  a  double  line  may  mean  capital 
letters  or  thick  t}-pe. 

The    following    little    passage   will    show   what    the 
commonest  sifjns  of  correction  are. 


#  '^^ 


X  practi/elvcry  cai-(^ 
full)'  one  '  by  one,  the 
^4*«.  di/erent  s^s  for  chan- 
szes/  Under-lining  (italics  i  a 
Mord  or  words  means/;  a 
double  /  may  mean  capita' 
^e/ters  or  thick  typeZ-afid- 
Khe  following  little  pas^ge 
will  show^at  thejb~ommonest 
signs  [are/  of  correctionjt  JTo 
th^  remarks/  .... 


#    ^ 
t^ 

t-:^.. 


lOJZ. 


Ur.4- 

if  , 


To  these  remarks  I  may  add  a  few  extra  hints. 

When  anything  has  been  omitted  it  is  as  well  to 
insert  it  by  means  of  lines,  and  to  put  the  new  words  in 
the  Margin. 

When  there  is  an}thing  to  be  noticed,  for  instance 
when  the  type  is  not  cjuitc  straight,  then  a  little  mark  in 


3So        HINTS   ON   WRITING  FOR    THE  PRESS 

the  Margin  should  be  quite  enough  to  call  the  attention 
of  the  printer  to  the  fault. 

When  there  is  a  large  Correction;  it  may  be  as  well 
often  to  re-write  the  whole  sentence  ;  the  printer  may  be 
able  to  use  some  of  the  old  type  again,  and  thus  you 
may  save  expense. 

But,  when  there  is  a  large  addition  to  be  made,  then 
it  may  be  better  to  write  it  on  a  separate  piece  of  paper 
and  to  pin  this  on  to  the  Proof,  marking  very  clearly,  in 
the  Proof  itself,  the  place  where  it  should  be  inserted. 

The  above  Corrections  and  Hints  should  be  practised 
carefully,  one  by  one.  A  very  good  opportunity  for 
doing  this  is  an  ordinary  journey,  especially  in  the 
train  :  many  minutes  can  be  spent  most  usefully  in  this 
way. 

But,  after  all,  you  will  save  much  trouble  in  correcting 
the  Proofs  if  you  take  great  care  with  your  original 
Manuscript.  Indeed,  when  I  prepare  works  by  the 
Card-System,  I  find  that  instead  of  having  to  correct, 
let  us  say,  twenty  words  on  a  page,  sometimes  I  only 
have  to  correct  one  or  two  words  on  two  pages.  Not  only 
should  the  Card-System  be  used,  but  the  Manuscript 
when  done  should  be  laid  aside  for  a  time  and  then 
looked  at  again;  a  week  is  almost  the  smallest  time 
which  should  be  allowed.  As  I  have  shown  (on  p.  369), 
Type-writing  will  help  in  this  direction :  the  delay  which 
it  ensures  will  mean  far  fewer  Corrections  when  the 
Proofs  arrive. 


HINTS   ON  MAKING  INDICES  381 


Hints  on  Making  Indices. 

The  iinpoi'tancc  of  an  Index,  for  nine  books  out 
of  every  ten,  is  undoubted.  There  are  some  people 
who  do  little  or  nothing  else  but  prepare  and  write 
Indices,  and  whether  )'ou  give  up  the  Index  to  one 
of  these  workers  or  do  it  yourself  is  again  a  matter 
of  money  as  compared  with  time  (see  p.  375)-  It  will 
also  depend  on  whether  you  think  that  the  Index- 
maker  would  understand  your  work  sufficiently  well 
to  make  an  Index  which  would  satisfy  you.  The 
following  remarks  are  intended  only  for  those  who 
mean  to  do  the  Index  for  themselves. 

Read  through  the  work  carefully  at  least  once,  and  try 
to  put  yourself  in  the  average  reader's  position,  asking 
yourself  what  things  he  or  she  is  likely  to  wish  to 
refer  to. 

While  you  are  reading  through  the  work,  make 
'  cross-references ',  and  write  down  on  a  sheet  of  paper 
the  most  important  pages,  especially  those  where  (so 
to  speak)  two  or  three  roads  meet,  that  is  to  say,  pages 
which  contain  allusions  to  a  large  number  of  topics 
which  will  come  in  the  Index.  On  the  same  principle, 
if  you  were  studying  the  Geography  of  a  country  you 
would  have  to  make  a  careful  note  of  the  chief  towns, 
and  of  the  places  where  many  roads  met. 

It  is  better  of  course  to  have  the  Index  too  full  than 
too  empty :  to  refer  to  a  word  or  idea  two  or  three 
times,  than  to  refer  to  it  only  once.  A  great  difficulty 
of  Indexing  is  that  there  are  in  our  language  many 
Synonyms  (such  as  Wealth  and  Riches) ;  if  one  chooses 


382        HINTS   ON   WRITING  FOR    THE  PRESS 

a  single  word,  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  reader  will 
look  in  the  Index  for  some  other  word  ;  it  is  therefore 
better  to  write  down  both  words.  Practice  in  Para- 
phrasing (see  p.  252  foil.)  will  come  in  useful  here. 

The  Card-System,  with  small  Cards  or  pieces  of 
paper,  is  essential ;  and  it  is  also  essential  not  to  ivrite 
more  than  one  Heading  on  a  single  Card.  It  is  the 
greatest  mistake,  in  doing  an  Index,  to  write  down 
ten  Headings  on  a  single  piece  of  paper.  You  may 
have  to  add  some  very  important  new  Headings,  and 
the  putting-in  of  these  Headings  may  make  the  paper 
in  a  terrible  mess.  If  you  write  each  Heading  on  a 
separate  piece  of  paper,  it  becomes  very  much  easier 
to  arrange  these  pieces  in  alphabetical  order  after- 
wards ;  in  fact  to  re-arrange  and  alter  and  add  would 
be  no  difficulty  at  all.  The  following  Diagram  will 
show  the  contrast. 

Here,  as  elsewhere  (p.  367),  there  must  be  no  sparing 
of  paper  :  paper  is  very  cheap. 


a  b  c 
a  h  i 
a  j  k 


a  n  o 
al  m 
ad  e 
afg 


(i.)  Card-System  :  the  wrong 
order  can  easily  be  remedied  if 
each  Heading  is  on  a  separate 
Card  or  Slip. 


HINTS   ON  MAKING   INDICES 


383 


(2.)  Page-System  :  the  inser- 
tions are  clumsy,  especially  if 
a  d  e  happens  to  be  a  large 
Heading  (e.g.  of  10  words). 


Besides  paper,  you  ma\'  need  paste  and  long  strips  on 
which  to  fasten  the  various  separate  pieces. 

You  also  need  a  very  large  table,  on  which  to  arrange 
the  pieces  of  paper,  or  else  a  Holder  like  that  which  is 
described  on  p.  187.   Do  not  let  anyone 'tidy' your  papers! 

In  the  Index  itself,  the  references  and  cross-references 
might  be  to  pages  rather  than  to  Sections.  To  refer 
to  Sections  is  very  easy  for  the  Writer,  and  is  good 
especially  when  the  book  will  run  to  a  second  edition, 
but  it  is  generally  exasperating  for  the  reader.  I 
know  of  one  book  where  on  one  page  there  are  five 
Sections,  whereas  another  single  Section  lasts  for  25 
pages  !  The  reader  wastes  no  end  of  time  owing  to 
this  want  of  uniformity,  whereas,  with  references  to 
pages,  an  idea  can  be  discovered  almost  immediately. 

An  Index  can  be  accumulated  by  degrees,  especially 
if  the  Card -System  is  used.  Mr.  Swan  Sonnenschein 
kindly  told  me  of  an  excellent  plan.  Instead  of  putting 
all  the  Cards  for  the  letter  C  in  a  mass  under  C,  divide 
them  into  CA— CE— CI-CO— CU— :  each  will  in- 
clude all  the  words  in  which  C  is  the  first  letter,  and 
A  etc.  the  first  vowel  :  e.g.  CA  would  include  Cats, 
Crassus,  and  Classics,    These  can  be  sorted  afterwards. 

Index -making  is  work  which  one  does  best  if  one 
does  it  for  long  stretches  of  time  together. 


CHAPTER    LXXII.     SPEAKING. 


There  is  a  very  great  difference  (see  p.  19)  between 
Speaking  and  Writing.  But  the  difference  is  not 
always  appreciated.  A  Lecturer,  for  instance,  very 
often  writes  down  his  Lecture  beforehand,  and  then 
reads  it  out  from  his  paper  when  he  comes  before  liis 
listeners.  What  may  be  clear  to  Jiiin  as  he  reads  the 
written  Lecture  may  be  very  far  from  clear  to  those 
who  have  to  listen.     Of  this  I  shall  speak  below. 

Speaking  demands  a  considerable  effort  of  memory* 
of  course  I  am  not  treating  here  of  Speaking  in  the 
sense  of  reading  a  Speech  from  a  paper  or  book,  which 
is  the  worst  form  of  Speaking.  Not  only  should  the 
Speaker  remember  the  Ideas,  their  right  Order,  their 
Importance,  and  their  Connexions,  and  the  Comparisons 
and  Contrasts  by  which  he  shall  make  them  clear,  or 
Emphasise  them :  not  only  should  he  remember  the  whole 
Beginning  and  the  whole  Ending  of  his  Speech  (the 
Beginning  being  interesting,  and  the  Ending  generally 
impressive)  ;  but  he  must  also  remember  a  certain 
amount  with  regard  to  the  way  in  which  these  Ideas 
are  to  be  Expressed.  The  Practice  of  Speaking,  there- 
fore, will  be  a  first-rate  exercise  for  the  memory,  putting 
it  to  an  extremely  severe  test. 

The  Memory,  as  well  as  the  power  of  Speaking,  will 
depend  a  good  deal  not  only  upon  the  general  Health, 

*  See  "  How  to  Remember"  (to  be  published  by  Warne  &  Co.). 

3S4 


J/LVrS  ON  ShEAKING  385 

but  upon  the  food  which  has  been  taken  beforehand. 
There  are  some  who  cannot  Speak  well  after  a  heavy 
meal,  and  there  are  some  who  cannot  Speak  well  except 
after  a  heavy  meal!  See  'Muscle,  Brain,  and  Diet' 
(Sonnenschein). 

There  are  many  differctit  classes  of  Speeches,  from 
the  Technical  Lecture  addressed  to  Specialists  only, 
and  the  Debate,  which  may  be  more  or  less  Techni- 
cal, to  the  popular  subject,  which  must  appeal  to 
a  number  of  people  of  all  sorts  and  conditions,  in- 
cluding people  of  very  small  intelligence  and  with 
very  few  ideas. 

As  contrasted  with  print,  and  especially  with  the 
excellent  modern  print  of  Books  and  Articles,  Speak- 
ing should  be  shorter  than  Writing ;  this  applies  par- 
ticularly to  Sermons,  which  are  often  stupendously  long. 
The  clergyman  who  has  written  out  his  Sermon  has  no 
idea  how  dull  it  may  be  when  he  comes  to  speak  it. 

With  regard  to  Lectures,  so  great  is  the  strain  of 
listening  to  a  Lecture  for  many  minutes  together,  even 
if  it  be  simple  and  popular,  that  it  is  a  wonder  that 
more  Lecturers  do  not  have  intervals  in  their  Lectures, 
e.g.  intervals  for  Mnsic.  I  am  sure  that  the  Lectures 
would  be  twice  as  pleasant  and  only  half  as  fatiguing. 
The  interval  would  of  course  drive  some  of  the  Ideas 
out  of  the  listeners'  minds,  but,  after  it,  that  which  had 
been  said  before  could  be  gathered  up  in  a  short 
Resiunee.  The  same  will  apply  to  Sermons.  I  am 
sure  that  the  Sermon  of  more  than  twenty  minutes, 
unless  it  be  exceptionally  good,  produces  such  feelings 
of  fidgetiness  and  discomfort  (if  it  does  not  succeed  in 
producing  sleep)  that  the  good  effects  are  entirely 
outweighed.  Whereas,  if  the  clergyman  really  has  so 
2  c 


386  HINTS   ON  SPEAKING 

much  to  say,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  Sermon,  hke 
the  Prayers,  should  not  have  intervals  of  Music.  The 
principle  is  a  very  wide  one,  and,  if  only  the  subject 
be  gathered  up  in  a  few  sentences  when  the  Lecturing" 
is  re-commenced,  there  seems  no  objection  to  such 
interludes. 

Not  only  must  Spoken  words  be  shorter  than  Written 
words,  but  they  must  also  be  far  clearer.  A  useful 
hint  for  those  who  are  Speaking  to  a  mixed  audience 
is  :  "Make  your  language  as  simple  and  clear  as  possible, 
and  appeal  to  i/ie  very  lozvest  intellect,  as  a  general  rule ; 
but,  just  occasionally,  tJirozv  in  some  little  remark  or 
suggestion  which  might  appeal  only  to  the  more  intelligent 
or  learned. 

It  will  be  found  that  this  was  the  method  which  a 
very  great  teacher  used  to  adopt.  Most  of  what  he  said 
appealed  to  the  lowest  intellects  and  to  the  interests  and 
points  of  view  of  the  great  majority  of  human  beings ; 
but  occasionally  he  gave  little  touches  which  must  have 
been  absolutely  beyond  the  understanding  of  the 
majority :  these  were  addressed  to  the  more  learned 
and  clever. 

Of  Clearness  we  have  already  spoken  on  page  227. 
We  have  seen  how  the  personal  language,  describing 
someone  as  doing  something,  is  a  very  important  factor 
in  Clearness,  and  also  how  a  Repetition  or  a  Paraphrase 
may  help  much,  and  Comparisons  and  Contrasts  still 
more.  These  latter,  the  Comparisons  and  Contrasts, 
make  the  Speech  more  interesting  as  well ;  and  this 
brings  us  to  the  third  point  of  difference. 

A  Speech  should  be  more  interestiag  than  a  written 
discourse.  It  should  have  far  more  Variety  and  change, 
and  there  might  be  more  Humour  in  it.     An  instance 


HINTS   ON  SPEAKING  387 

should  be  given  now,  and  now  a  general  principle,  and 
now  (see  p.  17S)  another  instance.  Wherever  it  is  pos- 
sible, the  subject  should  be  relieved  by  Illustrations. 
The  Blackboard  should  be  used  far  more  often  than  it 
generally  is,  especially  at  Lectures.  Open-air  teachers 
have  one  very  great  advantage  over  most  other  teachers: 
being  in  the  open  air,  they  can  usually  take  Illustra- 
tions (see  p.  288)  from  the  surroundings. 

In  a  long  Speech  it  is  very  important  that  the  hearers 
should  have  a  geno-al  notion  of  the  szibjcct  as  a  tvholc ; 
and  for  this  purpose,  unless  a  very  clear  Sinnniary  can 
be  given  at  the  beginning  and  at  the  end,  it  is  im- 
portant to  provide  the  hearers  with  a  short  Scheme  of 
the  subject  itself 

It  might  be  suggested  that  such  Schemes  should  be 
used  in  the  House  of  Comvio7is.  If  Speakers  would 
make  a  Syllabus  or  Scheme  of  their  Speech  before 
they  gave  vent  to  it  in  the  House,  a  great  deal  of  time 
might  be  saved  and  the  Ideas  would  be  far  more 
thoroughly  impressed  upon  the  members.  At  the  same 
time,  the  faults  or  the  worthlessness  of  a  bad  Speech 
would  be  exposed.  A  collection  of  such  Schemes  would 
form  a  very  valuable  education  in  political  life.  Anyone 
who  collected,  and  arranged  properly,  a  series  of  them, 
dealing  with  the  topics  of  a  single  year  of  the  House 
of  Commons'  existence,  would  not  only  be  able  to 
educate  the  Public  on  matters  of  importance,  but 
would  also  be  able  to  show  those  who  were  not  in 
the  House  how  their  affairs  were  being  understood 
and  discussed.  The  same  will  apply  to  other  INIeetings, 
and  even  to  Debates. 

Some  Speakers  ivrite  doivn  the  zvhole  of  their  Speech, 
and  then  learn  the  ivhole  of  it  off  by  heart.     For  this 


388  HINTS  ON  SPEAKING 

purpose  it  is  very  necessary  to  knozv  how  to  learn  by 
heart  (see  p.  87  foil.),  for  most  people  do  it  in  the  wrong 
way.  It  would  be  far  better  merely  to  learn  the  Scheme, 
and  to  get  that  thoroughly  into  one's  mind,  and  then 
to  learn  by  heart  only  a  few  of  the  more  important 
passages,  such  as  the  Beginning  and  the  Ending. 

As  to  other  differences  between  Speaking  and 
Writing,  the  Pauses,  which  are  so  hard  to  represent 
in  Writing,  can  be  represented  in  Speaking  by  actual 
pauses,  or  by  what  is  called  ^'Padding".  It  is  a 
mistake  to  keep  the  attention  of  the  audience  on  the 
full  stretch  during  a  long  Speech,  and  so  "Padding" 
has  its  value  if  it  is  used  for  this  purpose,  namely, 
as  a  relief.  Speaking  has  the  extra  advantage  of 
gesture,  etc. 

But  it  labours  under  one  disadvantage,  namely  that, 
tinless  the  ivords  are  distinct  and  zvell  spoken,  the  Speech 
may  be  a  failure.  I  remember  two  political  Speakers 
whose  Speeches  both  appeared  in  the  Paper  the  next 
day.  The  one  'read'  as  if  it  were  exceptionally  common- 
place and  silly,  the  other  '  read  '  as  if  it  must  have  been 
a  prodigious  success :  the  Ideas  and  their  Expression 
seemed  perfect.  Someone  who  was  present,  however, 
told  me  that  the  first  Speech  had  carried  the  whole 
audience  with  it,  because  it  had  been  spoken  so  clearly 
and  so  well,  the  elocution  being  perfect  and  all  the 
'  devices '  being  employed  in  just  the  right  places.  The 
second  Speech  had  fallen  quite  flat :  everybody  had 
fidgeted  and  talked  throughout,  because  the  Speech 
had  been  badly  delivered.  It  was  delivered  or  read 
almost  inaudibly,  and  in  a  dull,  monotonous  voice,  and 
without  any  feeling,  and  without  any  gesture,  except 
such  as  a  penny  toy  might  make.     The  Speaker,  then, 


HINTS  ON  SPEAKING  389 

should  at  any  rate  master  the  elements  of  Elocution, 
and  a  little  Book  published  by  Messrs.  Drane  can  be 
recommended  for  beginners. 

A  Speaker  also  should  have  a  great  deal  of  sympathy 
with  the  Ideas  about  which  he  is  Speaking ;  and  he 
should  thoroughly  understand  them.  It  is  far  easier  for 
most  people  to  seem  to  understand  and  feel  a  thing  ivhen 
they  Write  it  than  zvhen  they  Speak  it. 

The  Speaker  should  also  have  one  or  more  objects  and 
aims  in  view. 

He  should  understand  human  nature,  and  its  interests, 
and  especially  the  nature  and  interests  of  his  particular 
audience. 

He  must  also  take  into  account  their  surroundings 
and  their  conditions,  so  that  he  may  use  the  right 
Comparisons  and  Contrasts.  One  of  the  most  striking 
features  of  open-air  speaking  and  preaching  (e.g.  in 
Hyde  Park)  seems  to  me  to  be  the  utter  failure  of 
the  Speakers  to  use  the  Illustrations  and  Comparisons 
which'  abound  all  round  them,  the  sky,  the  sun,  the 
flowers,  the  trees,  the  people  themselves  and  their 
occupations.  All  are  wont  to  be  ignored,  just  as  if 
the  Speaker  were  Speaking  to  dummies  in  a  bare 
Lecture-room.  How  extraordinarily  these  open  -  air 
mob-orators  have  failed  to  study  the  best  model  (see 
p.  214).  There  seems  to  have  been  nothing  in  the 
surroundings  which  is  not  seized  on  at  once,  as  an 
Illustration  of  that  which  is  being  mentioned.  Of 
course  if  the  Speaker  does  not  see  the  Comparisons 
and  Contrasts  in  the  things  around  him,  there  is  only 
one  course  to  adopt,  and  that  is  to  practise  finding 
and  seeing  these,  as  a  special  Exercise. 


CPIAPTER   LXXIII.     LETTER-WRITING. 


There  are  very  many  kinds  of  Letters,  but  here  I  shall 
be  treating  chiefly  of  ordinary  Letters. 

1.  The  first  piece  of  advice  is  not  to  economise  paper. 
Lines  put  closely  together,  and,  what  is  still  worse,  lines 
written  across  the  writing,  are  to  be  utterly  avoided. 
As  we  have  often  said  before,  paper  is  so  cheap  that 
there  is  no  need  for  such  economy. 

2.  I  should  suggest  that  as  a  rule,  before  the  writing 
begins,  the  Ideas  should  be  Collected  by  the  ''  Card- 
System  ",  or  at  any  rate  should  be  jotted  down  on  a 
piece  of  paper,  not  close  together  and  in  a  single  line, 
but  underneath  one  another  and  with  intervals  between. 

The  advantages  of  taking  this  great  care  about  an 
ordinary  Letter  are  as  follows.  You  will  have  records 
of  what  you  have  written,  and  records  of  the  most 
convenient  kind.  You  can  prepare  your  Letters  any- 
where, even  in  the  train,  and  so  save  a  great  deal  of 
time ;  and  it  may  be  noticed  here  that  the  idleness 
of  people,  during  that  great  portion  of  their  lives  which 
they  spend  in  travelling  and  waiting,  can  easily  be 
avoided  in  this  way.  There  is  a  third  advantage,  and 
this  is  that  in  the  end  you  will  save  time  by  this 
method  :  among  other  reasons,  your  Letter  may  be 
only  half  the  length  that  it  would  otherwise  have  been. 
You  will  be  far  less  likely  to  leave  out  anything  of 
importance.      And,    besides    this,    the    Letter    will    be 

390 


LETTER-  WRITING  391 

pleasantcr  to  read.    Lastly,  it  will  be  very  good  practice 
for  any  kind  of  Composition  or  Speaking. 

There  are  some  who  shrink  from  the  drudgery  of 
practice  as  practice,  but  who  would  not  shrink  from 
practice  of  this  kind,  where  an  immediate  purpose  is 
to  be  served. 

3.  The  interest  of  the  reader  is  to  be  considered 
above  all  things  by  Letter-Writers ;  they  should  put 
themselves  into  the  position  of  the  reader,  and  imagine 
the  reader's  feelings  and  thoughts;  and  of  course  they  will 
enter  into  these  more  fully  if  before  Writing  they  read 
through  previous  Letters  from  the  reader.  I  might 
mention,  by  the  way,  that  to  analyse  previous  Letters 
as  they  come,  and  to  keep  this  analysis  carefully 
catalogued  (in  a  Book  or  on  Cards),  will  be  very  good 
exercise  in  the  Collection,  Selection,  and  Arrangement 
of  Ideas. 

4.  Business-Letters  sliouhi  be  as  short  as  possible,  and 
(as  we  have  seen)  this  shortness  can  be  helped  by  a 
careful  Collection,  Selection,  and  Arrangement  of  Ideas 
by  the  "  Card-System  ".  These  Cards  should  afterwards 
be  kept  for  reference  (see  p.  187),  and  they  also  should 
be  carefully  catalogued. 

The  Paragraphs  of  ail  Letters  should  be  far  shorter 
than  the  Paragraphs  of  Essa}'s ;  the  Sentences  also 
should  be  shorter,  and  as  a  general  rule  Brevity  should 
be  aimed  at.  This  is  not  merely  in  order  to  save  time, 
but  also  because  a  short  Letter  is  more  likely  (on 
ordinary  occasions)  to  hold  the  attention  and  interest  of 
the  reader. 

5.  If  there  is  any  doubt  about  Clearness,  however, 
eitlier  the  passage  should  be  re-zvritten,  or  there  should 
be    Repetition    (see    p.    270)  ;    and    perhaps    occasional 


392  LE  TTER- 1 VRITING 

Comparisons  and  Contrasts.  It  is  a  mistake  to  let  any 
Sentence  of  doubtful  meaning,  that  is  to  say  a  Sentence 
which  might  mean  nothing,  or  might  mean  either  one 
of  two  things,  pass  by  itself.  A  Repetition  of  the  Idea 
in  another  form  would  be  almost  sure  to  put  the  actual 
meaning  beyond  doubt. 

6.  But  for  Clearness  and  for  Interest  there  is  no 
greater  help  than  (see  pp.  231,  349)  picture-painting  in 
the  mind.  In  Letters  there  is  a  good  deal  of  description, 
and,  if  you  can  imagine  to  yourself  the  actual  scenes 
about  which  you  are  writing,  the  Ideas  are  far  more 
likely  to  be  clearly  and  vividly  expressed.  An  occa- 
sional Drawing  or  Diagram  is  a  considerable  help. 

J.  The  Law  of  Relative  Importance  is  to  be  observed 
in  Letter-Writing  as  carefully  as  in  Essay-Writing. 
The  main  Ideas  should  be  made  to  stand  out  promi- 
nently, either  by  Repetition  or  by  some  of  the  other 
means  suggested  on  page  268  foil. 

S.  Hnnwur  is  of  course  far  more  in  place  in  a  Letter 
than  in  the  more  serious  Essay ;  at  least  this  is  the 
general  opinion. 

9.  After  the  Letter  has  been  done  it  should  be 
read  throngh,  and  should  (if  possible)  be  read  out  loud, 
and  you  should  ask  yourself,  as  you  read  it,  whether 
it  is  clear,  whether  it  is  fair  and  true,  and  (last  but  not 
least)  whether  it  is  kind.  Putting  it  in  another  way, 
you  might  ask  yourself,  '  What  will  the  person  feel  and 
think  on  reading  this  ? '  or,  '  Should  I  eventually  be 
sorry  to  have  received  such  a  Letter  myself?'  or,  again, 
'  Should  I  be  sorry  to  have  written  it,  say  a  year 
hence?' 

10.  For  it  is  better  to  pt-esuppose  that  every  Letter  you 
write  will  be  kept:  you   must  not  rely  on  any  Letter 


LETTER-WRITING  393 

being  thrown  away  or  destroyed  directly  it  is  read.  It 
i.s  this  that  makes  it  worth  while  to  take  ever  so  much 
more  pains  over  Letters  than  people  generally  do. 

11.  If  the  Letter  is  important,  especially  if  it  be  a 
Business-Letter,  there  should  be  as  long  an  interval  as  is 
feasible  between  the  writing  and  the  sending  off.  There 
have  been  many  who  have  never  written  Business- 
Letters  of  any  importance  (and  especially  Letters  in 
which  they  find  fault  with  anyone)  without  keeping 
them  back  for  a  day. 

12.  Records  of  Letters,  gw'xwg  the  gist  of  them,  with 
the  date,  etc.,  would  be  always  at  hand  if  you  prepared 
the  Ideas  before  writing  the  Letter.  The  Writer  would 
find  that  this  would  soon  become  quite  an  easy  and 
almost  an  automatic  task,  though  at  first  it  would 
be  somewhat  difficult  and  slow,  and  would  demand 
much  conscious  effort. 

13.  It  is  as  well  to  have  some  fixed  time  of  the  day  for 
Letter-  Writing,  and 

14.  to  keep  ready  at  hand  a  list  of  those  Letters  ivhieJi 
you  have  to  write.  A  still  better  method  is  to  address 
envelopes  or  postcards  beforehand :  this  is  far  the 
neatest  form  of  Memorandum.  If  you  have  to  write 
a  Letter  to  H.  Jones,  it  is  safer  to  address  an  envelope 
to  H.  Jones,  Esq.  (there  is  no  need  to  write  the  address 
now),  than  to  write  down  H.  Jones  on  a  piece  of  paper 
which  you  might  forget  to  look  at  again.  Such  en- 
velopes and  postcards  can  be  kept  in  some  special  [ 
place. 

As  I  said  above,  Letter-Writing  is  very  good  practice 
for  Composition,  or  rather  it  should  be  very  good 
practice,  and  can  easily  be  made  so.  It  gives  you 
facility  in   Collecting    Ideas,   in    Arranging    them,  etc. 


394  LETTER-WRITING 

and  in  turning  them  quickly  into  English,  and  in 
criticising  this  English  afterwards.  Undoubtedly,  if 
Letter-Writing  be  done  in  the  right  way,  it  will  increase 
your  sympathy  with,  and  your  knowledge  of,  those 
to  whom  you  write,  as  well  as  your  kindness,  and 
prompt  and  business-like  habits,  which  are  indeed  an 
integral  part  of  kindness  itself 

A  few  miscellaneous  Hints  may  be  added. 

15.  Each  Letter  which  you  write  should  contain 
your  \\o'Ci\Q.- address,  and  also  (if  necessary)  the  address 
to  which  an  answer  should  be  sent. 

16.  It  should  have  the  date,  namely  the  day  of  the 
month  and  year. 

17.  Enclosures  should  not  be  omitted  (though  they 
frequently  are). 

18.  On  the  envelope  the  time  of  posting  might  be 
mentioned.  It  is  very  frequently  the  case  that  Letters 
are  late,  sometimes  a  day  or  two  days  late,  and  in 
applying  to  the  Post  Office  it  is  very  convenient  to 
show  that  the  Letter  which  was  posted  at  ten  a.m.  on 
a  certain  day  arrived  at  least  three  days  late. 

19.  As  to  the  different  ways  of  signing  oneself  and 
of  addressing  Letters,  etc.,  I  must  refer  to  the  cheap 
manuals  which  are  published  in  large  numbers  by 
various  Publishers. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  repeat,  Letter-Writing  is  a  thing 
worth  spending  a  long  time  over,  not  only  for  its  own 
sake,  but  also  because  it  will  be  the  best  possible 
Exercise  in  all  kinds  of  Speaking  and  Writing.  For 
it  is  seldom  easy  to  get  any  kind  of  Exercise  which 
is  itself  of  great  use  in  the  immediate  present.  Most 
Exercises  are  chiefly  means  to  an  end  ;  few  are  also 
an  end  in  themselves. 


Part    VI 


PART    VI.     ADVANTAGES   OF   THIS   SYSTEM, 
WITH   ANSWERS   TO   OBJECTIONS. 


LXXIV.    Advantages  of  this  System        .  .        •    397 

LXXV.     Objections  to  this  Svsiem,  with  Answers    404 


CHAriER    LXXIV.     ADVANTAGES  OF 

THIS   SYSTEM. 


Tills  MetJiod  of  preparing  Compositions  will  only  have 
its  full  advantages  if  it  be  begun  carcfilly  and  with 
patience.  If  the  reader  be  too  hasty,  and  try  to  do 
the  whole  Essay  at  once,  he  will  get  very  little 
advantage,  whereas,  when  the  different  parts  have  been 
steadily  practised  one  by  one,  then  an  occasional  Essay, 
to  be  done  in  a  given  time  (see  p.  343),  will  have  its 
peculiar  value. 

The  advantages  of  my  Method  will  include  all  the 
'  advantages  of  being  able  to  write  Essays,  etc' 
(p.  3  foil.),  as  well  as  the  advantages  of  each  particular 
part  of  the  art,  for  instance,  the  advantages  of  the 
"Card-System"  (see  p.  192  foil.),  and  (see  p.  284  foil.) 
of  Comparisons,  and  Contrasts. 

The  advantages  of  a  Scheme  need  not  be  entered 
into  here :  but  it  is  worth  remembering  that,  if  you 
have  not  had  time  to  finish  writing  out  your  Essay 
in  an  Examination,  it  may  be  as  well  to  show  up  the 
Scheme.  It  is  not  every  Examiner  who  will  see  the 
point  of  this  :  but,  obviously,  every  Examiner  ought 
to  be  able  to  judge  of  your  Style  well  enough  by  what 
you  ha-ve  written  out ;  all  your  Ideas  and  their  Arrange- 
ment he  will  be  able  to  see  in  the  Scheme :  he  can 
therefore  easily  gather  what  the  whole  Essay  would 
have  been.     But  it  must  be  admitted  that  an  Exami- 

397 


398  ADVANTAGES   OF   THIS  SYSTEM 

nation  should  also  test  each  pupil's  power  of  mapping 
out  his  time  scientifically. 

The  chief  advantage  of  a  Scheme  I  should  consider 
to  be  that  it  enables  the  reader  or  hearer  to  get  a 
bird's-eye  view  of  the  Ideas  and  their  Arrangement. 

One  very  great  merit  which  the  Method  has  is  this. 
The  ordinary  Essay-Writer,  when  he  is  learning  or  prac- 
tising, does,  let  us  say,  an  Essay  on  Caesar,  another  on 
Napoleon,  another  on  Gladstone,  and  so  on.  Each  one 
is  done  separately,  and  helps  the  others  very  little 
indeed.  But,  with  my  System,  the  Writer  or  Speaker 
has  a  certain  set  of  Headings  and  Sub-Headings  for 
all  Essays  on  Persons  (p.  93) :  these  he  has  to  change, 
to  a  certain  extent,  for  each  particular  person,  but  the 
foundation  and  plan  of  all  may  be  similar,  so  that,  after 
doing  half-a-dozen  Essays  on  Persons,  he  gets  the 
Scheme  of  an  Essay  on  a7iy  Person  well  into  his  mind. 

And  not  only  this,  but  he  finds  that  very  much  the 
same  Headings  will  be  useful  or  rather  necessary  when 
he  comes  to  do  an  Essay  or  to  make  a  Speech  on  a 
topic  of  apparently  quite  a  different  kind,  e.g.  (see 
p.  92)  on  Government,  or  Slavery,  or  War. 

Once  again,  supposing  he  has  to  deal  with  a  wider 
kind  of  Essay  or  Speech,  one  in  which  it  will  be 
necessary  to  take  a  glance  at  a  whole  Period  in  all 
its  important  aspects  (such  as  Government,  W^ar, 
Religion,  Education,  Commerce,  etc.),  he  might,  in 
the  ordinary  way,  prepare  or  read  twenty  Essays  or 
Speeches  of  this  kind  without  improving  very  con- 
siderably :  he  might  not  yet  see  that  there  are  a  number 
of  Headings  which  to  a  certain  extent  apply  to  ail 
Essays  like  this  (see  p.  83).  According  to  my  Method, 
he  will  already  have  these  Headings  and  Sub-Headings, 


ADVANTAGES   OF   T//IS  SYSTEM  y)') 

and  can  then  apply  tlicm  to  a  number  of  separate 
subjects  (such  as  the  Age  of  Pericles,  of  Alexander 
the  Great,  of  Cicero,  of  Louis  XIV.,  etc.).  After  a 
certain  number  of  such  Essays  or  Speeches,  this  List 
of  Headings  will  also  be  firmly  fixed  in  his  mind. 

And  not  only  this,  but  here  again  he  will  find  these 
Headings  useful  for  other  types  of  Essays,  such  as 
the  Causes  of  War ;  the  Results  of  War,  the  Results 
of  Religion,  of  Slavery,  of  Naval  Lower ;  the  Sphere  of 
Government  (or,  as  Herbert  Spencer  would  call  it,  of 
Government-Interference);  and  see  further  page  133  foil. 

In  other  words,  he  will  have  acquired  a  number  of 
more  or  less  General  or  Universal  Headings,  which  will 
help  to  dt-aiu  out  what  he  already  knows  on  any  subject, 
and  will  sJioiv  Jiini  zvJiat  he  does  not  know,  and  will  thus 
tell  him  the  best  topics  for  research  and  special  study. 

Another  advantage  of  my  Method  is  that  it  shows 
that  Essay- Writing  or  Speaking  is  not  only  a  difficult 
art,  but  a  very  complicated  art,  since  it  comprises  a 
7iinnber  of  departments  ivhich  are  almost  distinct  from 
one  another.  It  is,  in  fact,  an  art  which  includes  many 
arts. 

For  this  reason  I  have  given  a  general  view  of  the 
processes  of  Essay-Writing :  I  have  shown  (that  which 
really  must  often  have  shown  itself)  the  difficulty  of 
the  art,  and  then  I  have  taken  each  part  or  process  in  the 
art,  and  have  explained  it  by  itself  I  have  shown  what 
the  c\\\Q.'i  faults  are,  and  how  these  faults  may  best  be 
avoided,  and  how  excellence  may  best  be  acquired.  I 
have  tried  to  give  the  reasons  for  each  Exercise  which 
I  have  suggested. 

Two  or  three  of  the  qualities  ivhich  ivill  be  developed 
by  this  Method  may  be  mentioned  here. 


400  ADVANTAGES  OF  THIS  SYSTEM 

First  of  all  will  come  qinct  and  calm  reflection  and 
work.  The  Writer  or  Speaker  will  get  into  the  habit 
not  only  of  doing  things  in  the  right  way,  but  of 
thinking  them  out  logically  and  from  many  points  of 
view,  before  he  proceeds  to  say,  or  even  to  do.  This 
cannot  fail  to  affect  his  everyday  life  :  not  only  in  what 
he  writes  and  in  what  he  says,  but  even  in  what  he 
thinks,  he  will  learn  to  gather  together  what  he  knows 
on  both  sides  of  any  given  question. 

If,  afterwards,  he  shall  study  politics,  he  will  be  able 
to  judge  of  the  merits  or  faults  of  political  proposals ; 
he  will  not  (as  so  many  politicians  do)  look  at  the 
immediate  effects  of  any  proposal,  but  will  look  at  the 
effects  upon  (see  p.  125)  the  subsequent  period  also.  If 
a  Poor  Law  is  proposed,  he  will  not  simply  say  '  This 
will  help  the  poor  to-day',  but  he  will  consider  the 
effect  on  future  generations  of  his  countrymen.  Such 
a  training  is  very  necessary  indeed  for  some  Members  of 
Parliament,  who  at  present  are  ill-qualified  for  deciding 
in  favour  of  or  against  a  proposal  by  the  mere  fact  that 
they  possess  a  certain  amount  of  money. 

The  study  of  the  New  Testament  in  Schools  (and 
indeed  elsewhere)  is  at  present  extraordinarily  unsatis- 
factory, if  we  judge  it  by  its  results  on  the  daily  life : 
and  that  is  really  the  only  way  in  which  we  can  judge 
it.  Considering  the  time  spent  on  it,  we  must  decide  that 
there  are  few  branches  of  study  which  are  less  fruitful. 
My  Method  would  insist  on  a  study  of  the  Ideas 
of  the  New  Testament  (see  p.  213):  the  Writer  or 
Speaker  would  have  to  go  through  the  best  parts  and 
to  pick  out  the  real  meaning,  the  real  sense,  apart  from 
the  language.  At  present  very  few  people  seem  to 
work  this   out :    they  are  quite  content  to  read  or  to 


ADVANTAGES   OF   THIS  SVSThM  401 

hear  a  Chapter  of  the  Bible  every  day,  or  every  now 
and  then  ;  and  even  if  three-quarters  of  the  Ideas  are 
ill  understood  and  ill  realised,  they  think  that  they  will 
be  heard  for  their  much  reading. 

The  New  Testament,  again,  must  also  be  studied  for 
its  Expression.  The  advantages  of  this  I  have  pointed 
out  on  page  215  foil.  For  the  reasons  given  there,  if  we 
study  it  for  its  Expression  and  Style  alone,  we  shall 
learn  more  about  Expression  and  Style  than  by  any 
other  means,  and  we  shall  be  forced  by  the  way  to  con- 
sider the  Ideas  as  well. 

My  ]\Iethod  is  also  especially  intended  for  Teachers 
as  tvell  as  for  learners.  Thousands  of  Teachers,  who 
can  write  Essays  or  make  Speeches  themselves,  confess 
their  utter  inability  to  teach  the  subject  at  all.  Those 
who  do  not  confess  this  are  often  condemned  by  their 
learners  :  few  of  their  learners  can  write  good  Essays  or 
make  good  Speeches.  This  Book  gives  some  of  the  reasons 
ivhy  this  7nust  be  the  case,  if  learners  are  taught  the  art  of 
Essay- Writing  and  Speaking  simply  by  Writing  Essays 
and  making  Speeches.  It  is  shov/n  here  that  many 
special  Exercises  uwst  be  carefully  practised  one  by  one. 

The  System  also  includes  a  scientific  zvay  of  reading 
and  of  listening.  Ninety-nine  people  out  of  a  hundred 
read  and  listen  without  Method  or  S}'stem,  and  the 
result  is  that  the  Ideas,  by  which  they  might  have  been 
improved,  are  either  not  absorbed  at  all  or,  if  absorbed, 
are  just  about  as  useful  as  lumber  in  a  lumber-room. 
As  in  Essay -Writing,  so  in  reading  and  listening, 
there  must  be  a  certain  scientific  system  and  method 
for  beginners  :  and  this  method  cannot  be  easy  to 
acquire.  At  first  it  must  be  acquired  by  very  great 
effort  and  conscious  exertion. 
2    D 


402  ADVANTAGES   OF   THIS  SYSTEM 

I  have  also  suggested  means  by  which  the  Ideas  zuhich 
are  absorbed  should  be  put  to  some  use,  and  not  only 
be  thoroughly  understood  (see  p.  349)  but  also  made 
material  for  further  use :  for  instance  see  p.  289,  for 
Comparisons. 

In  the  Book  itself  I  have  called  attention  to  the 
Interest  of  Essay-Writing  and  Speaking  as  a  subject, 
quite  apart  from  its  many  advantages:  see  p.  150,  I 
feel  sure  that  one  of  the  greatest  mistakes  in  our 
Education  is  that  we  give  people  things  to  learn  in 
which  they  take  not  the  slightest  interest,  although  just 
a  few  words  or  a  few  minutes  of  explanation  would 
show  that  the  subject  was  really  interesting  and  valuable. 
I  can  never  see  that  a  subject  is  likely  to  produce  any 
the  worse  effects  because  the  learner  is  told  that  it  is 
interesting  and  valuable ! 

The  Processes  also  I  have  tried  to  make  interesting. 
Thus  I  fancy  that  there  are  very  few  who  would  not 
find  the  use  of  the  "Card-System"  (see  p.  186)  very 
engrossing.  It  makes  Essay -Writing  or  Speaking 
almost  as  much  a  game  as  Whist,  for  the  arranging 
of  the  hand  at  Whist  is  very  similar  to  the  arranging 
of  the  Cards  for  Essay- Writing  or  Speaking. 

The  use  of  Comparisons,  again,  cannot  fail  to  be 
interesting:  it  will  be  encouraging  for  the  reader  to 
know  that  there  is  scarcely  anything  that  he  himself 
understands  which  he  may  not  be  able  to  use  as  an 
illustration  or  as  a  means  of  explaining  something 
which  is  far  harder. 

In  conclusion,  one  may  say  that  there  is  scarcely  a 
o-ood  mental  quality  or  faculty  which  will  not  be  im- 
proved by  my  System,  if  the  System  be  properly  used. 
A  methodical  plan  of  doing  anytJiing,  patience  in  the 


ADVANTAGES   OF   THIS  SYSTEM  403 

doing  of  it,  without  the  demand  for  immediate  results, 
the  spirit  of  fairness,  and  a  sympathy  with  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men — these  are  a  {q\w  of  the  qualities 
which  cannot  fail  to  be  developed.  Others  have  been 
pointed  out  in  the  course  of  the  Book  itself. 

It  is  not  claimed  that  the  Method  will  be  a  complete 
Education  :  very  far  from  it.  But  at  least  it  will  sJiow 
the  advantage  of  every  other  brancJi  of  learning  and 
Education,  and  in  fact  (see  p.  2S5)  v/ill  call  in  those 
other  branches  to  help  it.  And  it  will  give  a  S}'stem 
which  can  be  applied  to  almost  any  other  subject. 

But  I  cannot  finish  without  a  word  as  to  its  incom- 
pleteness. It  is  probable  that  the  advantages  of  some 
Method  which  will  be  like  this,  but  v'ery  much  superior 
will  be  far  be}-ond  any  advantages  that  I  have  claimed 
for  my  Method.  Moreover,  there  are  certain  faculties 
which  I  believe  will  chiefly  be  acquired  through  Athletics 
and  Games  ;  among  these  would  be  pluck,  and  perhaps 
mutual  help  and  co-operation. 

But,  in  so  far  as  any  subject  (apart  from  Athletics 
and  Games)  can  approach  to  a  complete  Education,  I 
think  that  this  may  be  claimed  for  the  scientific  prepar- 
ation of  Essays  and  Speeches. 


CHAPTER    LXXV.    OBJECTIONS  TO  THIS  SYSTEM, 
WITH  ANSWERS. 


One  of  the  chief  Objections  to  my  Method  will  be 
that  my  General  Lists  of  Headings  and  Sub-Headings 
(pp.  83,  92)  are  a  kind  of  '  Cramming.'  As  a  matter  of 
fact  the  Headings,  for  instance  those  from  which  one 
may  choose  in  writing  an  Essay  or  in  making  a  Speech 
on  any  Person,  are  not  Cramming  at  all :  they  really 
ask  a  series  of  questions  (see  p.  'Ji),  saying  to  the 
Writer  or  Speaker,  'What  do  you  know  about  this 
question,  and  about  tJiis,  and  about  this  ? '  To  try  the 
Essay  or  Speech  without  such  a  List  would  be  some- 
thing like  trying  to  do  an  Examination  without  a  paper 
of  Examination  Questions.  If  the  Writer,  therefore, 
will  only  remember  that  each  Heading  is  really  not  a 
piece  of  information  but  a  question  to  draw  out  what 
he  already  knows,  or  to  call  his  attention  perhaps  to 
something  which  he  ought  to  know,  then  he  will  not 
accuse  the  Headings  of  being  anything  like  Cramming. 

Again,  it  may  be  said  that  there  are  too  many  Head- 
ings and  Sub-Headings :  that  they  are  not  all  needed 
for  any  given  Essay  or  Speech.  I  freely  grant  that 
in  an  Essay  on  the  Age  of  Augustus;  for  example,  all 
the  Headings  on  page  83  would  not  be  needed. 

But  on  the  other  hand  I  find  that,  without  such  a 
List,  people  are  constantly  forgetting  to  make  mention 
of  something  which  they  actually  know:  in  fact  when, 

404 


OBJECTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  405 

in  looking  over  Essays,  I  have  asked  the  Writer 
whether  he  ought  not  to  have  mentioned  such-and-such 
a  Heading,  he  has  nearly  always  said  '  Yes,  but  it  did 
not  occur  to  me'.  Secondly,  such  a  List  is  very  easy 
to  learn,  especially  if  it  is  in  a  Rhyme  (see  p.  83) ;  and 
thirdly,  when  once  it  lias  been  learnt,  it  is  very  easy  to 
pick  out  just  those  Headings  and  Sub-Headings  which 
one  wants,  and  to  reject  the  rest.  Fourthly,  to  have 
a  ready-made  List  like  this  saves  a  great  deal  of  time 
and  trouble,  and  produces  a  much  better  result :  it  calls 
to  the  mind  of  the  Writer  or  Speaker  a  great  many 
topics  which  he  really  knows,  and  suggests  to  him 
others  which  he  ought  to  look  up  for  himself.  Above 
all,  it  gives  him  the  power  of  rapidly  forming  an  opinion 
on  any  general  question.  Few  things  are  more  striking 
and  more  lamentable  than  the  narrowness  of  the  point 
of  view  of  most  English  people.  If,  however,  such 
Headings  as  these  were  to  be  constantly  used,  these 
people  would  very  soon  acquire  the  habit  of  looking  at 
questions  from  many  poifits  of  viezv,  and  not  from  one 
only.  There  is  yet  a  sixth  point,  and  that  is  that  every 
year  we  see  more  and  more  subjects  included  in  the 
list  of  'things  worth  mentioning'.  Contrast  the  "Daily 
Mail "  of  to-day  with  an  old-fashioned  paper,  and  you 
will  see  how  much  that  was  utterly  ignored  years  ago 
is  now  thought  deserving  of  a  whole  column.  Then, 
again,  such  Lists  gives  a  fairly  good  order  for  general 
purposes.     For  the  other  advantages,  see  page  yi. 

But  the  real  test  of  whether  it  is  good  or  not  is  to 
try  an  Essax-  like  the  '  Results  of  Geography  on  English 
History',  first  of  all  zvithout  any  General  List,  and 
then  ivitJi  the  Lists  on  pages  83,  107:  compare  the 
Scheme  which  you  get  by  the  one  process  with   the 


4o6  OBJECTIONS  AND  ANSWERS 

Scheme  which  you  get  by  the  other  process,  and  then 
decide  whether  the  general  List  is  really  worth  learning 
or  not. 

It  may  be  said,  however,  that  such  Lists  would  do 
away  with  Originality.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there 
will  be  plenty  of  room  left  for  Originality  (see  p.  219)  in 
the  Selecting  and  Rejecting  of  Ideas,  in  the  Underlining 
of  Ideas,  in  the  working  out  of  Comparisons  and  Con- 
trasts, and  in  seeing  each  Idea  clearly  as  a  definite 
picture  in  the  mind's  eye :  all  this  gives  scope  for 
Originality.  And,  besides,  if  the  Essay -Writer  or 
Speaker  is  provided  with  ten  Headings,  instead  of  the 
eight  which  he  would  think  of  if  he  were  left  to  himself, 
then  surely  he  has  more  chance  of  Originality  in  working 
out  the  ten  Headings  than  he  would  have  in  working 
out  the  eight.  He  has  a  far  wider  sphere  within  which 
to  work. 

If  it  should  be  thought  that  it  is  an  error  to  make 
tJie  various  processes  of  Essay-  Writing  or  Speaking  me- 
cJianical a7id conscious ;  that  the  'joints'  will  appear,  and 
that  the  mechanism  will  stand  out ;  then  I  reply  that 
this  is  the  only  way  for  those  who  do  not  do  the  thing 
correctly  by  nature  and  by  instinct.  It  is  all  very  well 
for  the  genius  Jiimself  to  write  a  good  Essay  or  make  a 
good  Speech  straight  off,  and  then  to  lay  down  the 
universal  Law  that  the  right  way  of  making  an  Essay 
or  Speech  is  simply  to  make  it  at  once,  and  not  to 
trouble  about  processes  :  when  he  comes  to  teach  a 
Class  of  various  pupils,  his  theory  will  prove  to  be  a 
dead  failure.  Personally,  I  have  found  very  few  Honours 
men  at  Cambridge  able  to  write  a  good  Essay  even  on 
an  easy  subject :  they  have  no  method  at  all.  In  such 
cases  (where,  if  anywhere,  one  might  expect  success)  it 


OBJECTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  407 

is  necessary  to  begin  at  the  beginning  again.  But  how 
much  better  it  would  have  been  if  the  beginnings  had 
been  got  through  and  the  foundations  laid  during  School- 
life.  It  seems  to  me  that  there  must  be  something  radi- 
cally wrong  with  our  School  Education  if  it  does  not 
teach  the  average  boy  or  man  to  write  a  fairly  good 
piece  of  English  Composition  or  to  make  a  fairly  good 
Speech.  That  which  is  neglected  at  School  seems  to  be 
beneath  the  dignity  of  the  University  to  trouble  about, 
and  hence  as  a  rule  the  real  processes  are  never  taught 
at  all. 

It  is  true  tiiat  the  '  mechanism '  may  appear  at  first : 
the  result  will  be  something  stiff  and  unnatural.  But, 
after  the  various  processes  have  been  steadily  practised 
one  by  one,  especially  those  processes  in  which  the 
individual  is  weakest,  the  processes  will  work  far  more 
smoothly  and  easily  and  rapidly  not  only  by  themselves, 
as  special  and  isolated  Exercises,  but  also  in  combina- 
tion within  the  Essay  or  Speech. 

It  is  said  that  '  Correct  Reasoning  cannot  be  taught' : 
I  think  that  the  right  way  of  expressing  this  would  be 
that  "hitherto  a  large  number  of  learned  people  have 
failed  to  teach  average  individuals  to  reason  correctly". 
If  the  processes  of  correct  reasoning  were  taught  very 
carefully  and  slowly  and  in  the  right  way,  and  if  they 
were  afterwards  practised  (e.g.  see  p.  150  foil.),  then  it 
could  hardly  be  denied  that  the  power  of  correct  reason- 
ing would  be  enormously  improved.  We  may  not  be 
able  to  help  some  (who  are  called  'duffers')  to  do  things 
perfectly,  but  we  viay  be  able  to  put  them  in  the  way  of 
doing  things  better  than  they  do  them  at  present :  as  it 
is,  we  tell  them  simply  to  'practise',  whereas  we  ought 
first  of  all  to  show  them  hou  to  practise.     The  secret  of 


4oS  OBJECTIONS  AND  ANSWERS 

practice,  for  duffers  and  indeed  for  most  learners,  is  to 
practise,  at  first,  not  the  whole  process,  but  its  various 
parts,  one  by  one,  correctly,  slowly,  and  again  and  again, 
until  each  has  become  half  automatic. 

I  grant  that  it  is  a  pleasure  to  read  an  Essay  by  a 
genius,  but  I  cannot  agree  that  it  would  be  a  pity  to 
raise  the  general  standard  of  excellence,  and  to  help  the 
average  person  to  achieve,  as  a  task  of  great  effort  and 
constant  care,  very  much  the  same  result  that  the  genius 
achieves  without  any  such  effort  or  care,  and  by  a  kind 
of  instinct.  As  it  is  now,  too  much  thought  is  bestowed 
on  the  genius ;  too  much  is  left  for  the  other  boys  to  do 
by  themselves  or  not  to  do  at  all :  it  would  be  far  better 
if  these  were  coached  and  practised  in  the  foundations 
and  elements,  and  tJicn  left  to  themselves  more  and 
more. 

One  of  the  greatest  faults  of  our  School-system  is  that 
the  genius  is  encouraged  and  pushed  forward,  while 
there  is  no  m.ethodical  system  for  helping  the  plodder  to 
rise  to  the  standard  of  the  genius,  and  by  hard  work 
and  conscious  perseverance,  for  which  he  deserves  real 
praise  and  glory,  to  make  up  for  what  he  lacks  in  correct 
instinct  and  in  unconscious  ability,  for  which  natural 
p^ifts  he  himself  deserves  no  praise  or  glory  whatsoever. 


Arri':xi)ix.   some  useful  reference  books. 


TiIK  forhnvliig  list  might  ea.sil\'  be  trebled  :  but  I 
have  j)referred  to  give  (qw  works  beyond  those  which 
I  myself  have  found  most  useful.  I  should  be  glad, 
however,  if  my  readers  would  suggest  others. 

The  Asterisk  *  marks  a  work  as  likely  to  be  especially 
useful  to  beginners. 

Articles :  very  numerous  (in  the  "  Athenneum",  "  Fortnighlly", 
"Nineteenth  Century",  "North  American  Review",  etc.). 


Askew  (J.  B). 
l)awson  (('.  J.) 


M'owler  (J. 
Free be I 


1) 


Gibson  (L.  M.) 

^Hartley 
Hinsdale  (B.  A.) 

(?) 
Kay  . 
Lamb  (J.  B.)  . 

Lewes  (C.  H.) 

Lobban  (J.  H.) 
Meiklcjohn     . 


Pros  and  Cons  (Swan  Sonnenschein). 
Essay  -  JFri/inj^     and     Pai-apJirasing 

(McDougall). 
Alneieenth  Century  Prose  (Black). 
Educational   Laws   for   All    leachers 

(Edward  Arnold). 
Handbook  for  Literary  and  Debatiyig 

Societies  (Hodder  and  Stoughton). 
Lfotv  to  Speak  Well  (Drane). 
Teaching  the  LMngiiatre  Arts  (Appleton) 
J/oiv  to  Write  (Walter  Scott). 
Memory  (Cambridge  University  Press). 
Practical  Hints  on  Writing  for  the  Press 

(Bradbury,  Agnew). 
Principles    of    Success     in     Lit  era  tun 

(Scott). 
English  Essays  (Rlackie). 
The    Art    of    Writing    English,    and 

A  Hundred  S/iort  Essays  (H olden). 
409 


410 


APPENDIX 


Skif)ton  (H.)  . 
Spencer  (H.)  . 
Stout  (G.  F.)  . 
Wagner  (L.)    . 
*Wendell  (Barrett) 
Miles  (E.  II.) 
Morrell 
Pater  (W.)      . 
Raleigh  (W.)  . 
Shaylor  (J.)     . 


The  Essay-  IVrifer  (Crosby  Lockwood). 
Sociology  (Kegan  Paul). 
Manual  of  Psychology  (Clive). 
Uoiv  to  Publish  (Redway), 
English  Coviposition  (Scribner's  Sons). 
IIow  to  Re  me /liber  (Warne :  in  the  press). 
History  of  Menial  Philosophy  (Stewart), 
Appreciations  ( Macmillan). 
Style  (Edward  Arnold). 
The  I^leasures  of  Literature. 
Sau7iterings  in  Bookland 
(Wells,  Gardner,  Darton). 


A  few  general  books  may  be  added  : — 


*Buckle  (T.)       . 
Cunningham  (Dr.  W.) 

*Guizot   . 
Ihering  (R.  von) 

Motley 
Prescott 

Seeley  (J.  R.)     .. 


History  of  Civilisation  in  Etigland. 
Western  Civilisation  in  its  Economic 

Aspects,  and  other  works. 
History  of  Civilisation. 
Evolution  of  the  Aryan 

(Swan  Sonnenschein). 
Netherlands. 
Conquest  af  Mexico,  and  Conquest  of 

Peru. 
Expansion  of  England. 


INDEX 


Abbreviations:  70,  1S8 
Absence  of  Emphasis :  278- 
Abstract  and  Concrete:  273,  349 
Adaptation:  243  foil. ;  and  see  Ap- 
propriateness. 
Adv;intages    of    my    System:    397 
foil, 
of  Collecting  Ideas:  69 
of  General   Lists:    73   foil.,  398 

foil.;  404  foil, 
of  Period-Headings :  84  foil, 
of  Studying 

Authorities:   139 
Evidences:   147  foil, 
the  New  Testament  for  Style :  21 7 
foil. 

of  Rejecting  Headir^gs :  169 

of  Writing  and  Speaking  well: 
3  foH. 
Advertisements:  259,  260 
Aims  and  Motives :   102 

of  Teaching:  345  foil. 

of  Writers  and  Speakers:  48  foil. 
Alias  (Ornate  Alias):  254 
Aliens:  see  Other  Peoples. 
Alliteration:  304 
Amusements:   119 
Analogies  and    Comparisons:    28 1 

foil.;  and  see  Coni|mrisons. 
Analogy:  321 

in  Language :  207 
Analysis:  213,  214,  314,  362 


Anglo-S.ixon  Words:  244,  36^ 
Anticipalio.n :  275 
Anti-Climb:  301;  see  Bathos. 
Antithe.'-is;  see  Pardlelism  and  Con- 
trast. 
Appearance:   155 

fallacy  of:  55 
Aj'propriateness:  41  foil.,  224;  243' 

folh  and  passim 
Aristotle:  206  foil. 
Arrange   (Mow  to  Arrange   ITead- 

ings):  172  foil.,  264 
Articles  for  Magazines,  etc. :  5 ;  and 

see  367  foil. 
Author  (Essay  on):   129  foil. 
Authorities,  and  their  Faults':   139 

foil. 
Authority  (fallacy  of  tnvsting  to  it) : 

152 
Averages,  Law  of:   157 


B 

B;i(l  Schemes  of  Es.saysr  54  foil. 
Bain:    177,  276,  299  foil. 
Balance :  215,  300;  and  see  Rhytl.m. 
Bathos:  225,  260,  301 
Beginnings:  215,  258  foil.;  and  see 

Intere.st. 
Bias:   141,  153 
Blackboard:  387 
Blending:  321  foil. 
Bonds  of  Union:   U2- 


411 


412 


INDEX. 


ISooks  (List  of  Useful):  409 

How  to  Read:  352  foil, 
lirevity:  239  foil.,  247 
Buckle:   149 

Building  (analogy  from) :  xv 
Business-letters:  391 


Capital  letters:  326 
Card-System:    1 86  foil  ,    355,    3S2 
foil. 
Advantages:   192  foil. 
Carlyle:  38 
Causes:  96,  155 
Change  (need  of  Changes  in  work) : 

351.  363 
Changes:      127,     130;      and     see 

Motives. 
Chapters :  308  foil. 
Chiasmus;   177 

Choice  of  Subjects:   13  foil.,  339 
Cicero:  304 

Clas.ses  in  the  State :   no  foil. 
Clearness:  39,  227  foil. 

needed  in  Speaking :  384  f(  A\. 
Climax:  30 1;  and  see  Endings. 
Cohesion :  263  foil. ;  see  Connexion. 
Collect  Ideas  (How  to):  63  foil. 
Commas:  328  foil. 
Comparisons;    215,   234,   249,   281 

foil. 
Complexity  of   Essay-Wriling  and 

Speaking:  xvi 
Concentration  of  Attention :  passim, 

e  g.  190,  196,  350,  351 
Concrete:  235  foil  ,  273,  349 
Connectives:  265 
Connexion;  41,  179,  208,  263  foil. 
Conscious    effort    needed    at    first : 

406  and  passim 
Contamination:  321  foil. 


Contrasts:  215,  234.  271,  291  foil. 

Co-operation:    40;    and    see    Sen- 
tences, etc. 

Correct    (how    to    correct    Compo- 
sitions):  33S  foil. 

Correct   Reasoning :    407 ;    and  see 
Fallacies 
Proofs  (How  to):  377  foil. 

Corrections  in  Printing:  377  foil. 

Cramming^this  System  is  not  like 
Cramming:  404. 

Criticism:   129  foil.,  267,  338,  368 

Custom :  6,  153 

D 

Debates:  343,  387 

Definitions:   159  foil. 

Delays  in  writing  for  the  Press:  369 
foil. 

Demosthenes;   181 

Description;  97;  n.iid  nre  Realising, 

Dictation:  374  foil. 

Difficulties  and    Faults    in    Essay- 
Writing,  etc. :  44  foil. 
in  Style:  205  foil. 

Division    of    Labour:      272;     see 
Specialisation. 

Drawing  of  Plans,  etc. :  349 

E 

Economy:  37  foil.,  Z38,  yj^ 
Editors   and    Publishers:     14,    36S 

foil. 
Education:  117  foil. 

faults :  407,  etc. 

tendencies  of  English  Educations 

3 

Effects:  104,  125,  132,  156 

Elocution:  388 

Emotions  appealed  to ;  226,  254 


INDEX. 


4'3 


Emphasis:   1S2,  209,  268  foil. 

absence  of:  278 
Endings:  261  foil. 
Environment :  96 
E«i!s;ram:  301 
Evidences  and  llieir  Fiiiiinrjs:    146 

foil. 
Exaggeration:  235 
Examinations:  340,  397 
'Exclusions':  161,292 
Exercises:  passim,  e.g. 

in  arousing  Interest :  256 

in  Arrangement :   1 73  foil. 
Expression — General  Remarks :  202 
foil. 

illustrated   by  Malt,  vii,    15-27: 
212  foil. 
Extreme  Cases :  149 


Eacultics     developed     by     Essay- 
Writing:  399  foil.,  and  cp.  3  full. 

Fairness;  60;  and  sec  Open-minded- 
ness,  Bias. 

Fallacies:   150  foil. 

False  Economy  of  Paper :  46,  23S, 
390 

Faults  in  Essay-Writing  and  Speak- 
ing: xvii,  44,  etc. 
in  Education :  3,  etc. 
in  Expression :  255  ft-ll. 
in  Punctuation :  32S 
in  Reading:  352 
in  Teaching:  327  foil.,  etc. 

Finance:   122 

Fitness :  243 ;  and  see  Appropriate- 
ness. 

Flattery:  257,  363 

Force:  222 

Formulas:   161 


Games,  analogies  from  :  xiii,  13,  289 
advantages  of  studying :  xviii,  289 

General  (essay  on  a  general) :    105 
foil.,  274 

General  Essay-Headings:  91 

General  Hints:  36,  360  foil. 

General  Lists — Advantages :  73  foil. , 
398,  404  foil.;  and  see  Headings. 

General  Principles  of  Composition: 
37  foil. 

Genius  (often  a  bad  teacher) :  xiv, 
xviii,  etc. 

Geography  and  its  divisions:   107 
as  Evidence:  145 

Geology ;  see  Geography. 

Gibbon:  232,  254 

Good  Use :  320,  327 

Government:   113  foil. 

Grammar:  320  foil. 

Groups  of  Ideas:  iSo 

Groups  of  People:  96,  1 12 


H. 

Headings: 

for  Period  (and  Causes,  Results, 
Sphere,  etc  ):  79  foil. 

Uses:  84 

for  General  Essays:  91 

for  Person :  93 

for  Author :  1 29 

Advantages  of  General  Lists:  73 
foil.,  398,  404  foil. 

Often  Omitted:  71  foil. 

How  to  Collect:  63  foil. 

Card-System:  1S6 

Select  and  Reject:  166  foil. 

Underline:   170  foil. 

Arrange:  172;  see  also  Sub- 
Headings, 


414 


INDEX. 


Health:   120,  327 

Healthiness  of  Ideas:  60 

Hearer  to  be  considered:  231,  etc. 

Heredity:  96,  126,  148 

Hindrances:  97,  155 

Historians :      140    foil. ;     and    see 

Fallacies:   150  foil. 
Home-life:  119  foil. 
House  of  Commons :  3S7 
Humour:  301,  392 


Ideas  as  Headings :  (i6  foil. 

what   they   should   be:  60  foil.; 
see  also  Collect,  Arrange,  etc. 
Imitation:  355;  and  see  Originality. 
Immediate  Causes  judged  by:  155 
Impressiveness :  215 
Indentation:  59,  68,  184 
Indenting:  59,  68,  184 
Index-making  (Hints) :  381  foil. 
Individuality:  97  foil.,  iii 
Individuals  (Essays   on):    93  foil., 

Ill 
Industries:   122 
Inferences:  146 

wrong:  156 
Infinitive  (Split):  320,  321 
Instances:   178 

Extreme:   149 

and  Principles:   178,  179 
Intellect:  98 

Interest:  180,  215,  255  foil. 
Interjections:  301 
Intervals  —  needed    in    Essay-Pre- 
paring: 65,  330 

in  Speaking:  385  foil. 
Innuendo:  301 
Inversion:  276 
Irony :   301 


Judgment:  loi 
Justice:  115 


Language:   118;  and  see  Analogy. 

as  Evidence:   146 
Latin   Attention   to    R.hythm:    303 
foil. 

Prose:  234 

Words:  244,  305 
Law:   115 

as  Evidence:  146 
Leading  Men:   12S 
Learn  Lists  (How  to):  87  foil. 
Lectures  (How  to  Listen  to) :  358  ; 

and  see  384  foil. 
Length : 

of  Articles :  5 

of  Rooks,  etc. :  373 

of  Words:  271 

and  see  Paragraphs,  Brevity,  etc. 
Letters  to  Publishers  and  Editors: 

371  foil. 
Letter-Writing:  390  foil. 

Advantages:  390  foil.,  394 

Card-System:  391  foil. 
Listen  and   Learn  (How  to):  358 

foil. 
Literature  —  Classes    of    Writings: 

131- 
Litotes :  301 
Livy:    140  foil. 

M 
Magazines:  $ 
Manuscripts:  367  foil. 
Margins:  326,  362 
Marking  of  Books:  355 
Mass  of  Words:  271 
Matthew  vii.    15-27 — as  an   Illus- 
tration of  Style:  21 1  full. 


INDEX. 


415 


Meiosis:  301 

INIemoranda  for  Letters :  393 

Memory:   7,    237,    284,    384;   and 

see  Rhymes. 
Metaphors:    287  ;    and   sec    Com- 
parisons. 
Metonymy :  276 
'  Middle'  of  Essays,  etc.:  1S3 
Mixed  Metaphors:  254 
Modern  Tendencies  in  Newspapers, 

etc.:  76 
Mood:  253 
Morality  ;  see  Virtues. 
Motives:   102  foil.,  155 
Appealed  to:  216 
Changes  and  Mixtures:  48  foil., 

102 
of  Writers  and  Speakers :  4S,  49 


N 

Napoleon:  281 

Natural  =  best — a  fallacy:  45,  236 
Newspapers :  76  ;  and  see  Articles. 
New   Testament:    212    foil.,    289, 

306,  343,  400  foil. 
Note-Books:  66,  354 


O 

Objections   should   be  given:   161, 

167 
to   my   System,    with    Answers: 

404  foil. 
Occupations:   120  foil. 
Omissions,as  Evidence  of  Headings : 

149 
Omitted  Headings:  71 
Open-mindedness :    6,     150  j    and 

see  Fairness. 
Order  and  Justice :   115 


Order  of  Ideas  in  Essay :   178  ;  and 

sec  'Arrange', 
of  Words:  230,  316  foil.,  325 
Originality:  61,  167,  170,  219  foil., 

406 
Other  Peoples:  123  full. 


Padding  (its  use) :  388 

Paper:  see  False  Economy,  Writing 

for  Press,  etc. 
Paradox:  25S 
Paragraphs:  310  foil. 

length:  247 

for  Newspapers:  5 
Paraphrasing:  231,  252  foil.,  349 
Parallelism:  215,  300 
Parallels,  etc. :  162,  279  foil. 
Part-by-part  Method  of  Learning: 
xiv  foil.,   337   foil,   346   foil., 
etc. 
Participle  (too  free  use) :  321 
Period  (in  Composition):  250,  319 
Period-Headings:  79 

Previous  Period:  126 

Subsequent  Period:   125 
Personal  form:  214,  231 
Philip  of  Macedon:  2S1 
Phonograph:  375 
Pictures  in  the  mind:  231 
Poetry:  31 

Politics  (preparation  for):  400 
Popular  Audiences:   217;  and  see 

28 1  foil. 
Position  of  Body :  326  foil. 
Practice,  347  foil. 
Precision :  226 
Precis-writing:   183,  195 
Previous  Period:  126 
Principles  and  Instances:  178 
Principles  of  Composition  :  37  foil. 


4i6 


INDEX. 


Probability:   144 
rrogress:  127 

Headings  for  Essay  on:   135 
Pronouns:  275 
Proportion:  41,  142,  170  foil.,  209, 

239 ;  and  see  Underline 
Proofs  (for  Printing) :  377  foil. 
Proverbs:    85,    152,   235;    and  sec 

Fallacies. 
Prose — divisions   of    Prose    LitercL- 

ture:  131 
Prudery  (mistaken) :   16S 
Public  Works:   108  foil. 
Publishers :  367  foil. 
Punctuation:  317,  328  foil. 


Questions:  216,  256,  259,  296  fell. 
Quotations:  85,  163  foil.,  259 


Read  (how  to):  352  foil. 

Reader  to  be  considered:  231,  etc. 

Readers  (of  Publishers) :  376  foil. 

Reading  out  loud :  307,  363 

Realising:  349 

Refutation:  271 

Rejection  of  MSS.  by  Editors,  etc. : 

14,  376 
Religion:   116,  117 

as  Evidence:   146 
Repetition:  216 
Results;  see  Effects. 
Resumee  Method:  247,  266,  354 
Revisions:  330  foil. 
Rhetorical  Devices:   209,  242,  272 

foil,,  299  foil. 
Rhymes : 

General  Hints:  36 

the  Ideas :  62 


Period-Headings:  83 

General  Headings:  92 

Faults  of  Authorities:   144 

Fallacies:  158 

Style:  204 

How  to  Learn:  SS 
Rhythm:    7,    216,    225,    245,    249, 

303  foil. 
Rights  of  Individuals:   116 
Roman   Conquests  and   Successes: 
xvii,  185,  263,  273  foil. 


Safe  Rules:  320,  324,  362 

for  Letter-Writing:  392  foil. 
Schemes :  68,  189 

Advantages  of:  372  foil.,  397 
Schoolboy  Essays:  44  foil.,  etc. 
Select  and  Reject  (How  to):    166 

foil. 
Sentences:  315  foil. 

length:  248 
'  Sermon  on  the  Mount ' — a  passage 

analysed:  212  foil. 
Shorthand  Clerks:  375 
Simplicity:  227 
Slang:  245 
Social  Life:  119  foil. 
Speaking:  384  foil. 

must  be  Clear  :  227,  386 

must  have  fewer  Ideas : 

Illustrations:  389 

intervals  needed :  385 

memory:  384 

classes  of  Speeches :  385 
Special  Essays  (Headings):  91,  92 
Specialisation:  4,  137 
Spelling:  327  foil. 
Spencer  (H.):  228 
Sphere  of  Government :  1 14 
Standards  of  Judgment :   lOi 


INDEX. 


417 


Statistics  of  Collecting  Ideas,  etc  : 

64 
Style — how  to  examine  it:  211  f<jll. 

in  general :  202  foil. 
Subjects  for  Essays  — common  types: 
9  foil. 
for  study:  360 
Subsequent  Period :   125 
Sub-Headings:  95  foil, 
for  Period:   107  foil, 
for  Person :  96  foil. 
Suggestiveness :    61,   224;   and  see 

Interest. 
Summarising:   1S3,  195 

in  Speaking:  387 
Summary  of  the  Book:  27  foil. 
Syntax:  320  foil. 

Sympathy    encouraged    by    Essay- 
writing:  7,  349 


Tautology:  325;  and  see  Variety. 

Teach  (IIow  to  teach  Composition) : 
290,  337  foil,  and/rtw//;/ 
by  learners :  23  foil,  and  passim 
faults  in  Teaching:  see  Faults. 

Technical  Terms:  228  foil. 

Telegrams:  66 

Tendencies:   100,  127 

Tense:  253 

Titles   of    Books,   etc.,   important; 

374 
Topics  for  Essays :  1 33  foil. 
Types  of  Subjects:  9  foil.,  133 
Typewriting:  326,  368  foil. 
Tyrants  (Essay  on) :  44  foil.,  160 


U 

Underline  (How  to  underline  Head- 
ings) :  1 70  foil. 

'  Under  the  circumstances ' :  207 

Unions:  III 

Unity:  37  foil.,  243,  312 

Uses  of  Period-Headings:  84;  and 
see  Headings. 


Variety:  42,  208,  216,  251  foil. 

unnecessary:  254,  325 
Various   Classes  of  Compositions: 

16  foil. 
Vigour:  222  foil. 
Virtues  (List) :  99  foil. 
Vocabulary :  248,  324  foil. 
Voice:  253 

W 
War:   124  foil. 
Ways  of  Learning:  23  foil. 
Wealth:   122 
Wendell  (Prof.    Barrett):  4r,    191, 

243,  etc. 
Whitaker's  Almanack :  77 
Words  (Vocabulary) :  324  foil. 
Latin  or  Anglo-Saxon:  244,  24S, 

30s 
Word-play:  277 

Work — Need  of  Change:  351,  363 
Writing:    312  foil.,   326;    and  see 

Type-writing. 
Writing  for  Press  (Hints):  367  foil, 
as  opposed  to  Speaking:  3S4 


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PN    I'iles  - 
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1:^911  essays,  lectures, 
articles,  books, 
speeches  and  letters 


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